


Sweetness of a Storm

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Dragonriders, F/M, Illustrated, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Shapeshifting, Some OCs make an appearance, fantasy worldbuilding, lance falls hard and fast, this isn't pwp even though it sounds like it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 08:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11642328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Stranded up in the mountains while a blizzard runs wild outside the caves, Lance tries to find a safe place to stay.  He finds dragons instead.





	1. Part 1: Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this chapter is more like the prologue for a much larger project! Which I'm going to illustrate, so that'll be super fun! Please be patient with this, it's kind of taking second place to Deep Sea Sinning for me, but I really wanted to be able to update the first chapter on Lance's birthday!

 

Lance tasted the sweetness of the wind, his eyes narrowing in on the approaching storm.  That wasn't a good sign—if the piles upon piles of snow up and down the mountain were any prediction, this would be a blizzard, and the safest thing to do would be to find shelter and wait.  
  
He slung his bow back behind him, giving up the hunt in lieu of finding a spot to hunker down in until the storm passed.  Even though he was an frostelf, he wasn't dressed for a blizzard, and despite the rumors, even frostelves could freeze to death.  Especially when they were wearing quarter shirts like he was, his dark blue dusky nipples long since pebbled from the nipping cold.  
  
Lance had no audience to complain to, but he did so anyway as he tromped, featherlight and barely leaving a footprint, over the top of the snow.  "Stupid shirt.  Stupid mom, telling me I should pick practical over fashionable.  Stupid weather for making her right.  Ugh."  
  
The heavy glacier of Dhutyo valley loomed over him threateningly, and Lance might've found glacial study as dull and slow as the ice floes themselves but he knew camping underneath a glacier that wasn't receding was akin to deciding you liked risking death.  However, it would be a lot longer than a few hours for him to get out of its path, unless he decided to climb further up into the mountains in search of a cave.  
  
And he definitely could do that, except he knew that these mountains were riddled with dragons.  The ice drakes of the north dwelled here, and Lance also knew that entering a dragon's lair was probably just as stupid as getting crushed by a glacier.  So all of his options were poor ones.  
  
Lance had grown up with his mom's wyvern in the household, he thought hopelessly.  A dragon couldn't be that much different...  or worse.  And there was nothing to shelter in down here, so climbing up would be his best bet.  
  
Lance nodded to himself, starting the hike.  "No one has seen an ice drake for weeks.  Maybe they migrate, like birds.  What's the chance I come across one anyway?"

* * *

Lance finally came across a small cave, coated in thick ice but made of solid rock, just in time to duck out of the now howling winds into the calm of the tunnel.  
  
His eyes flickered, switching from their day vision to their night vision.  He could feel his second eyelid lift as everything around him brightened.  
  
The cave wasn't as small as he'd originally thought.  The back of it glittered with ice, a thin sheet melted to transparency, and through it, he could see that the cave was connected to somewhere much larger, much deeper, and much much more dangerous.  
  
And, even though Lance could hear nothing over the sound of howling gales and the rumble of distant avalanches, he swore he heard slithering or hissing or something equally dragon-like in nature coming from just beyond that fragile barrier.  
  
Lance took a step back, keeping himself tucked against the cave wall.  His bare back slid against the ice, and he shuddered at the sudden cold.  Even sheltered like this, he wasn't dressed to weather out a night of frozen air.  Maybe if he traveled deeper into the cave, the mountain would shield him better from the elements.  The air would heat up, stagnant and warm due to the miles of rock trapping it underground.  
  
But that meant if he wasn't already in a dragon's lair, he would definitely be walking right into one.  He would practically sign his own death sentence.  
  
Lance ran a shaky hand through his snow-covered hair and shook off the flakes, doing his best not to cry.  The droplets would only freeze his eyes shut.  
  
He had to risk going deeper.  He was going to freeze to death up here anyway.  
  
Maybe Lance would get lucky, maybe it wouldn't be an ice drake's nest at all and just a set of abandoned caves.  
  
Lance grabbed his serrated blade and stabbed it through the thin barrier, cutting through the paper thin ice and shattering the main construction of the wall all at once.  
  
Much thinner than he thought, was Lance's first observation.  His second was, no wonder the ice was so thin, because this set of caves was warm, a gust of hot air embracing him as he ventured forth.  
  
Maybe this wasn't an ice drake's lair.  No dragon of the high north would tolerate this kind of trapped heat, insulated in by snow and created likely by magma, running deep and freely in the mountain.  
  
He sheathed his blade, and focused on keeping his silence anyway, because a maybe wasn't good enough.  He'd need to confirm his safety before he felt confident enough not to sneak around.  And who knows what other manner of beast could lurk in a cave like this?  
  
The cave didn't exactly ever heat up to a truly warm temperature; as his skin adjusted, he noted that the chill was uncomfortable, but not overwhelming.  Not the kind of boreal condition that cracked his skin open and froze his blood, but the kind where he shivered, just warm enough that it was a tease.  And the further into the darkness that he crept, the more muted the outside winds became, until Lance found himself surrounded by nothing but the sound of water droplets colliding and rippling in their pools and the echo of his footsteps.  
  
Which made the next slithering noise he heard that much more ominous.  
  
Lance wasn't alone in here.  
  
He kept himself deathly still, his chest heaving quick silent breaths in his panic.  
  
Lance willed his breathing to slow and his feet to start moving once he didn't hear the noise again.  Maybe his terror-filled brain had made it up.  Maybe a piece of his equipment had dragged across the the ice as he'd walked and he'd made the noise himself.  
  
He edged along the walls, careful and quiet as he traced the tiny cave pathways deeper and deeper into the mountain.  
  
The slithering was getting louder, and Lance withdrew his bow from his back, his fingers tingling with the urge to form an arrow as soon as he would need it.    
  
He tucked himself behind a corner and kept his eyes peeled.  
  
The noises got louder, and he could now hear the sound of little flapping wings with the hissing and the sound of scraping scales.  It wasn't loud enough to be a dragon moving; dragons shook the ground with each step, the weight of their bodies massive enough to be felt in vibrations.  For it to be that tiny, it must be a wyvern or something else much smaller than a true drake.  
  
Lance waited until he saw the light shifting in the ice walls, the large shadow of a beast flickering as it approached.  He summoned an arrow of ice out of the snow around him, fitting it to his bow as he pulled back the string and waited for a brief moment, until he saw the throat of the scaly creature searching for him.  He loosed an arrow, immediately forming another into his bow as the creature screeched, its tiny wings flapping and claws scraping in death.  
  
Lance ventured closer, squinting.  It wasn't a wyvern that he'd killed.  
  
It was some kind of giant winged ice worm, dragging along pieces of a dragon's shed skin under its belly.  Unlike dragon wings, these wings were insect-like, almost like blue beetle wings, and they shined iridescent light.  
  
Lance let out a sigh of relief, shouldering his bow once again.  That should be it for these caves, at least for now.  What were the chances anything else lived down here?

Lance should’ve learned never to tempt fate.

* * *

The bitter cold was invasive, and he could feel shivers run down his spine.  Somehow, while he was trying to travel deeper into the mountain, he was also managing to travel upwards, farther than he’d ever gone past the permanent snow mark.  He was buried half inside a mountain, half inside a glacier, and the mountain rumbled with slow activity.

Nowhere he found seemed safe enough to stay the night.  Instead, Lance kept on searching for deeper tunnels, traveling further into the mountain seeking the warm air he craved.  And the further he went into the labyrinth of caves, the more on edge he felt.  Soon, he was going to run into something else again.  There was just no way he wouldn’t.

What if he ran into a whole nest of those ice wyrms?  Or what if he found a wild wyvern, untamed and hungry for his flesh?

As Lance followed the pathway that the tiny cave laid out, he picked up on which tunnels had thinner ice and which ones had warm air, and he followed that path towards the heat.  
  
The tiny caves started to open up into a larger cavern however, and the faint light ahead almost blinding after Lance's eyes had adjusted to the dark.  He quickly slammed down his second eyelids, covering his eyes as he peered out in a cavern lit by the play of light inside the crystal of the ice.  The faint beams illuminated something that was resting in the center of the room, large and... red.  
  
Lance stuttered, staring openly.  
  
A fire drake lay slumbering, curled up into a giant ball.  All the heat in the caverns radiated off of its skin.  
  
In a way, it was glorious.  The beast was massive, with sharp teeth large as columns and a glowing purple fire in its belly.  Each breath sent giant puffs of smoke up into the air, and as it shifted in its sleep, its wings fluttered open, all three sets of them, tiered and translucent, glossy in the reflected light.  And that red was such a deep color, interspersed only with geometric patterns of tiny veins of purple along its hide.  
  
Lance had seen wyverns before, and he knew how they looked at all stages of life.  His mother bred and raised them.  This was no wyvern in front of him.  This was a dragon.  
  
A young male dragon, Lance thought, examining the lay of fat and the crest of the fire drake.  And judging by the swollen pouch under the base of his tail, this was a drake in rut.  And Lance had wandered right into his nest.  
  
"...I thought I smelled a little intruder," came a thundering voice from behind him.  
  
Lance squeaked as a giant black claw hoisted him up into the sky without warning.  
  
Not just the one dragon, but _two_ .  
  
"I had no choice," Lance yelled,  "There was a blizzard outside, I needed to find shelter!"  
  
The fire drake cracked his eyes open slowly, revealing a soft, warm purple.  The glow in his eyes fluttered like the starlight, endless and deep with bright sparks reflecting like jewels.  Lance was struck speechless as soon as he looked, dangling in the ebony drake's grip.  
  
"Shikghyroh, it's alright.  He's harmless," the red male yawned, rolling up to his feet.  The pouch by his tail bulged, but it didn't seem to bother the dragon.  In fact, he seemed to be playing it off like it was nothing, like his rut had no effect on him.  
  
The black dragon sniffed suspiciously.  "He commands formidable magic."  
  
Well, Lance frowned, the one time he's complimented on his skills and it's the time when it'll kill him.  
  
"He can't hurt me," the fire drake dismissed, and if it wasn't likely to have gotten him eaten, Lance would've been offended.  "He's dangling like a lamb in your grip.  Shikghyroh, when I asked you to run interference on my cavern for the week, I didn't mean on the tiny folk."  
  
"The tiny folk can harm you as surely as a rival dragon, you know this," Shikghyroh told him sharply.  
  
"He's harmless," the red growled, "Let him go, or I will take him from you.  This is my territory, he is my prey to do with as I please.  Fight me over our basic nature like this and you will become a rival dragon to me, Shikghyroh."  
  
"Fine.  It's your call," the drake snarled back, "but never say I didn't warn you."  
  
Lance shrieked as the black dragon dropped him, but his fall was interrupted by a crimson scaled tail wrapping around his waist and bringing him face to face with the fire drake.  A single one of his eyes was as big as Lance was.  
  
And then, to his horror, the dragon's tongue reached out and curled around him.  Lance had only a few seconds to say goodbye to his life before he was dragged into the warmth of the drake's mouth.  
  
He rested limp on the dragon's tongue, hating himself for being so weak and useless.  What would his family think when he never came back?  
  
Lance mourned his short life for all of twenty seconds before he realized he wasn't being eaten.  
  
The tongue wrapped around him was acting a lot more like a blanket, and he was actually quite comfortable on the soft, yet rough flesh, surrounded by wet warmth.  Lance looked around the dragon's dark, damp mouth, and he abruptly realized that the fire drake had simply fallen asleep again, warming up the shivering elf in his mouth.  
  
Lance tucked the thick flesh of the tongue more securely over his shoulder and tucked in, trying to get comfortable himself.  
  
The dragon's mouth lifted on one side suddenly, and the black dragon's eye glared inside at him.  
  
"Don't get comfortable.  If you do anything to hurt Keirrghk, well—you might be safe for now, trespasser, but you can't hibernate in here forever.  Sooner or later, you will have to leave the safety of Keirrghk's protection.  And then..." the drake's silver eyes flashed with venom, "I'll make sure no one will ever find even the tiniest bit of dust from your ashes."  
  
The black dragon retreated, but he still found himself on edge, the terror creeping back in.  He was apparently only safe from the one dragon, not the other.  
  
Still, it was easy to curl up and tuck the dragon's warm tongue around him, the soft breaths from the drake's nostrils blowing fresh air into the warm cavern of his mouth.  Lance probably wouldn't make sleeping in the maw of a dragon a repeat experience, but considering it was far better than death, he could relax into the warmth of another living being all around him, and fall into a deep sleep.


	2. Part 1: Chapter 2

Lance woke up to being licked.  
  
The tip of the dragon's forked tongue stroked over him, and he almost screamed as the tip dragged right over his bare chest, rough like sandpaper.  
  
He jerked upright, his heart pounding as he yelled, "What the fuck—uh, shit, er—Keith!"  
  
The dragon's mouth opened, the tongue pushing him out onto the stone floor with a chuckle.  
  
"I forgot you were in my mouth," the fire drake snorted, a plume of steam escaping his nostrils.  "And you like to kick in your sleep."  
  
"I—I do, alright, but there's no way it would've hurt!" Lance stomped his foot, "You licked my entire chest, nipples included!  And Keith, you and I are not comfy enough with each other that I'd just let that slide!!"  
  
"Keith?" The dragon teased.  "Is that an Elvish word?"  
  
Lance cast a small spell to dry off his clothes, sulking, "No, it's your name!  Keith!  That's what the other dragon called you."  
  
"Keirrghk," the dragon corrected.  "My name is Keirrghk."  
  
Of course it was in draconic, Lance thought, which was the one tongue that elves weren't fully equipped to speak.  
  
"Keirragt?" Lance tried anyway.  
  
"Keirrghk."  
  
"Keurrght?"  
  
"Keirrghk."  
  
"Keorrght??"  
  
"Nevermind.  Keith works," the dragon sighed, slumping.  "I don't have the energy to fight you right now."  
  
Lance's eyes travelled to the base of the dragon's tail, his eyes widening as the heads of the dragon's twin cocks slipped out from between his scales.  They didn't look human; much too big with flared ridges adorning the glans.  They were purple with strain, clearly painful, and the dragon's seed dripped from the slits in large splashes.  Part of Lance felt scandalized, but he also had to remember that he was the one who looked at the mammoth in the room.  Two mammoths, really... Lance gulped.  
  
Every breath the dragon heaved saw another giant droplet of precum form on each tip, pearly white and likely enough to completely drench Lance head to toe.  They quickly gained too much weight to remain lingering at the slits and dripped onto the floor of the cavern in large pools, the smell of salt and musk hopelessly strong.  
  
The swollen heads were the only bits actually sticking out of the dragon's pouch, but the thought of the dragon's cocks being too big to properly fit inside their sheath had Lance shudder with feeling.  It was definitely wrong to feel aroused by this, but by no means did he stop, instead staring harder and wondering what he'd have to do to rub up against one, to touch their overwhelming heat and taste their bitter saltiness on his tongue right from the source.  
  
The drake growled at his blatant staring, shifting his legs so his leaky problems were hidden from sight.  Lance's heart rate spiked.  
  
"Sorry, sorry!!" Lance squeaked.  
  
"Why did you look?!" Keith snapped, averting his massive eyes.  
  
"I just... curious!  ...you're in rut!" Lance asked, "How long?"  
  
Keith nodded, yawning.  His foreleg stretched out far in front of him as he twisted into a more comfortable position.  He still looked glorious.  Stunning.  Everything that Lance didn't know he wanted.  Even that tongue he'd curled up in was starting to feature in filthy fantasies, even as it was used to form syllables.  "A week, give or take."  
  
A whole week of constant arousal.  After that long, Lance could imagine the drake giving in and letting him rub up against him, letting him lick and touch...  
  
Lance very briefly remembered a lesson on wyvern pheromones, about how they could drive other wyverns into similar states of rut, and how, seeing as dragons often were shape shifters, their pheromones could affect all manners of beasts.  Including, Lance realized, himself.  
  
It made a lot more sense why he was suddenly so onboard with fucking a dragon now.  
  
Lance inhaled deeply and tried his best to clear his head.  
  
"Why don't you just mate with the ebony drake...?" Lance asked, forcing himself to remember what he could about wyverns and dragons in general.  
  
"Not interested.  Shikghyroh has a khrrgyur; an ice drake named Alklrghra," Keith responded, his tone morose even as he gargled and growled out half those words in Draconic.  
  
Lance grimaced.  "No offense, Keith, but I'm pretty sure what you just said can't be pronounced by elves."  
  
Keith snorted, his beautiful eyes rolling, "Shiro, then.  He has a life-mate—Allura, to you, I guess."  
  
"He seemed so protective of you, though.  He threatened to kill me," Lance mumbled.  
  
"I was protective of _you_ , frost elf," Keith snapped, "Doesn't mean I want to fuck you."  
  
Oh but he would be so so eager for it, Lance thought.  He wanted Keith to use him however he saw fit, whatever it took to get the drake to cum...  
  
Lance snapped himself mostly out of it and glanced at where the dragon had his very very hard cocks hidden away, and slowly raised his eyebrow.  "You're not coming across as terribly picky right now."  
  
"I don't even know your name!" The dragon hissed, curling up tighter, "I saved your life and this is how you thank me?  Mocking?"  
  
"The name's Lance!" He yelled, "And yeah!  I was offering to help you out in thanks!"  
  
Keith stared at him.  "You're the size of a toothpick."  
  
Lance blushed vividly, "So?"  
  
"So I highly doubt you can even wrap your arms around even one of my cocks," the dragon shifted his leg, revealing one of those swollen heads again, and Lance had to admit, he was much more likely to fit his arms inside it than he would around it.  
  
Lance snapped, "Oh, because it's not like you can shapeshift or anything!"  
  
Keith groaned, "That takes so much effort though."  
  
"Do you want to get off or not, jeez!"  
  
"Not that badly," Keith dismissed.  He rolled over, onto his back, and his scales slipped even further open, the dragon's massive cocks stiffening further in the cold air.  
  
Lance shivered, taken away from the dragon's beautiful heat, and he did his best to sneak in as close as he could get away with.  
  
Keith arched his neck to stare at Lance, his cocks dripping messy onto the scales of his belly without their owner seeming to give a shit about the massive droplets.  "What are you even doing?"  
  
"I'm cold," Lance protested, "I'm also a tiny folk or whatever.  What does it matter if I lean against you for a bit?"  
  
"Because I'm horny?" The dragon whined, "It's weird to have someone else touching me when I'm like this."  
  
Lance did his best not to feel guilty as he shamelessly snuggled up against the dragon's warm scales at his throat, watching the drake's erections continue to stiffen and bead up at the tips.  They were such a pretty red too, their crowns thick and dark.  
  
"Ugh, this is so weird.  You are the worst.  Ughhhh.  I can't even lose my boners because I'm in rut, fuck you," the dragon whined, shifting his muscles under his scales in a way that rubbed his cocks against the pouch of skin they normally resided in.  
  
Lance wheezed, unbelievably turned on at the sight and very comfortable with the warm spot he'd found on the dragon's body, "I was willing to help you out with that, buddy."  
  
"I don't want to squeeze myself down into the size of a human when my hide already feels way too tight," The dragon blew out a frustrated column of smoke.  "Why don't you shapeshift into a dragon for me?  Why do I have to do all the work?"  
  
"Because that's really advanced magic and I don't know how to do it yet!!" Lance protested.  Plus if he used magic for that, he could only imagine the shrieking scoldings he'd get from his mother.  Talk about a reckless and stupid feat of magic.  
  
"You're so useless," Keith grumbled, pushing him off of his neck with an irritated swipe of his claws.  Lance hit the ground with a disappointed oomphft.  
  
The fire drake rolled back onto his front, and oh.  Those twin cocks slipped out fully, hanging thick and heavy between Keith's powerful thighs.  The dragon rubbed himself against the hard rock of the floor, hissing at the sensation as he scraped his sensitive skin.  "Hurts," he whined, slumping back down, his three sets of wings flopping down lifelessly.  He ground his hips down a little, seeking his own pleasure, but he was making more pained hisses than anything else.  
  
"You can't even get off in this form, can you?" Lance said, stunned.  "Keith, shrinking may be your best option."  
  
The fire drake yawned, a whimpery sound, "It'll feel awful."  
  
Lance coaxed, "Oh come on.  It'll feel really good once you adjust to being smaller, won't it?"  
  
"Have you ever turned yourself into a grape?" Keith whined, his eyes drifting open, "Tiny and squishy and weirdly soft?"  
  
"Well, no," Lance admitted. "I have been a sparrow though, and it was a kind of restricting feeling.  But unless another dragon decides to take pity on you, I'm the best you got for this week."  
  
Keith glared at him. "A cold blue toothpick is my best option.  Hooray."  
  
"I'm a wonderful lover, you giant prick," Lance crossed his arms.  "Admittedly better with people my size, but you know what?  Fuck you.  When I do figure out how to turn into a dragon, I'm nailing your ass to the wall."  
  
Keith squeaked, which was an interesting noise coming from a dragon.  "Are you seriously going to try and dominate me?"  
  
"Hell yeah," Lance said, "Your crest, it's still made of soft scales, and your horns are tiny; and you're a fire drake—I know they can grow to be twice the size of any other dragon, which means there's no way this is your full size yet.  Keith, you're still a horny teenager.  You're a _baby_ ."  
  
Keith growled, the glow of purple igniting in his chest, "What did you just call me?"  
  
Lance pushed his advantage, grinning, "Back down, baby, you know I'm right.  You know I'm right about all of this, too."  
  
He had a sudden burst of inspiration, and cooed, "I just want to thank you.  I'd give you everything you ask for, so just let me take care of you."  
  
"...everything?" The dragon asked.  
  
"Everything within my power."  
  
Keith considered it.  
  
Lance watched as his body shrank abruptly, until he resembled nothing more than a naked human.  The change was so quick that Lance stumbled towards the pale lump on the floor on shaky legs, almost worried that the dragon had given up the ghost.  
  
Skidding to a stop, he almost tipped himself over just staring at the puny form the fire drake had assumed with such ease.  
  
Flawless skin, soft and unmarred, a tiny waist with a round, perfect rump, long toes that faded into delicate feet and thin  ankles, and _oh_ .  Keith was a really pretty human, flushed pink in his cheeks with Cupid's bow lips and long, dark eyelashes.  He lay slumped on the rock just as bonelessly as the dragon had, but he was starting to pick himself up with his one hand, the other pressing to his forehead as he carded his fingers through unruly black hair.  
  
Lance wanted to touch.  
  
Nothing like what he had in mind at all.  The only things he'd been expecting that remained were the flushed red twin cocks gently nestled between his thick thighs, weeping drops of pearly white onto his peach skin.  
  
"Keith...?" Lance said carefully, approaching.  He could barely believe this doll of a boy was previously a fire breathing dragon, even if he had seen the transformation himself.  
  
"I shifted, so what's your problem now?"  Keith looked down, irritated.  "I thought you were offering to have sex with me?  What, am I not hot enough for you or something?"  
  
"That's not it—it's just, you don't look at all like how I thought you would," Lance stammered.  
  
"I'm no girl, Lance, so I hope you weren't expecting me to be," Keith growled, and now he sounded like a dragon again, which was alarming considering petal soft lips uttered those gravelly tones.  Damn.  
  
"You kind of look like one," Lance said, kneeling down close enough to touch Keith if the dragon indicated he wanted that.  
  
"This is the human form I've always used," Keith snapped, but his hand darted out and snatched Lance's wrist, yanking him forward into his personal space and pulling him out into a sprawl of limbs.  
  
Lance rearranged himself on the ground so that his long legs stretched out around Keith. He shook his head, finally gaining a little confidence, "I never said I didn't like it."  
  
Keith leaned forward, wrapping his hot fingers around the meat of Lance's thigh, and the tension between them was almost tangible enough to be cut through with Lance's serrated knife.  
  
"Are you sure about this?" The frost elf whispered.  
  
"Get on with it already!  I consent!" Keith growled, before grabbing his face and kissing him, sloppy and inexperienced and with breath so hot it felt like steam had invaded Lance's lungs.  Lance happily dove into the kiss with everything he knew, tilting his head until the angle was perfect and licking Keith's mouth open, pressing insistently inside so that their tongues could slide together.  
  
Keith tasted like carcinogens and something spicy, and it was only that and the heat of him that reminded Lance that he was kissing a dragon.  A massive fire drake, big enough to squish a human flat with one claw, had fit himself between a frostelf's legs and was kissing him.  
  
The thought of that sent a tingle down Lance's spine, igniting a fire in him that he was never aware he even had, and he hoisted the dragon up into his lap like it was nothing so he could ravage that mouth better, press himself even closer.  Those drippy cocks brushed his bare stomach, and Keith shuddered, squirming closer and wrapping his arms around Lance's neck tightly, like he never wanted to let go.    
  
Not much time for foreplay then, Lance thought, and he was kind of disappointed—he wanted to watch as the doll in his lap fell apart under his hands.  The doll, because the boy in his arms didn't feel like a dragon at all—not that he was too disappointed about that.  Yet maybe Keith was right, Lance thought, and he should learn how to turn into a dragon for a while so he could nail the beast he'd been ogling to the wall.  
  
Lance didn't stop kissing him as he wrapped a hand around one of the dragon's cocks, pulling back the foreskin gently as he thumbed inside at the head.  It was shorter than his own, smaller around and uncut, and Lance enjoyed the feel of it, velvety smooth and just the perfect weight in his hands.  He swirled the pad of his finger around that swollen gland, tracing the slit.  Collecting liquid on his thumbnail, he pushed in just enough to hear Keith fall apart, his hips jerking.  His thumb slipped out covered in thick white, and Lance swallowed Keith's moans eagerly.  He teased him, sliding that delicate membrane back and forth over the head with his thumb as he used his other four fingers to trace up and down along the shaft.  
  
"You're so drippy," Lance wondered, using the slick fluid to smooth his hand's passage rubbing up and down the dragon's member.  "Like, this is a lot."  
  
The fire drake panted, bucking up into Lance's hand desperately, "Nnngh, I'm in rut, of course it's like that, just—oh... ooooh.  Lance, please."  
  
Lance swirled his thumb around the head, before pulling back down and teasing the dragon's frenulum gently with the pad of his finger.  The action made Keith lose his complete composure, the muscles in his stomach spasming as he jerked in Lance's grip, a desperate wail escaping his lips even as he tried to muffle the noise against Lance's skin.  
  
Lance kissed at his neck, careful of the drake's horns as he sucked a mark into that porcelain skin.  His hand didn't stop moving either; he kept his touch loose and light as he twisted his fist up and down the shaft, going just fast enough that Keith didn't get impatient but slow enough that Lance could enjoy how fucking hot it was to have a dragon in rut turned into a breathy mess in his lap.  
  
Keith was making noises caught somewhere between human and beast, and they were possibly the hottest noises that Lance had ever heard.  Lance wanted to tease those noises out of him until his voice cracked and grew hoarse, until they evolved into screams.  
  
"You have two—Ngggh!  Lance, p-please—two hands, fuck!" Keith warbled, bucking up into his loose grip.  He twisted, trying to get his other cock to brush against Lance's knuckles, but Lance dragged him forward, closing in any remaining space between their chests, and kept purposefully neglecting the other member.  He was riding on a bit of a power high; he was in control right now, and the dragon would have to take what he gave out, no more, no less.  
  
Lance's other hand had been cupping a mound of that sweet, plush ass, but at the reminder of where Keith really wanted it, instead he snaked one finger drifting down into the crack to trace the puckered hole there.  
  
"I know," Lance purred, circling the delicate skin before pushing the pad of his finger in just enough to feel Keith whimper and beg, frantic.  
  
"Lance!" Keith pleaded.  
  
"Yeah, baby?" Lance mouthed at his neck, swirling his thumb into Keith's wet slit, enjoying the feel of precum sliding down his knuckles.  
  
He knew Keith was going to tell him he was close, he could feel it in how the dragon's dick twitched and jumped with every touch, desperate, in how Keith's noises were growing in volume, in how he shuddered down his full body, writhing in pleasure in Lance's lap like a desperate slut.  
  
"I'm gonna—aahhh!" Keith tried to warn him, but he cried out midway, his orgasm overwhelming him.  Both of those desperate cocks jerked as he came, but only one shot cum out of the slit, spilling even more bursts of thick white everywhere on Lance's leather pants.  It dripped in Lance's hand as he held it, softening in his grip as all Lance did was rub soothing circles into that over-sensitive skin, gently easing him down.  
  
"Mmmm," Keith squeezed his eyes shut, "Fuck."  
  
Lance chuckled and kissed his neck before pulling back and examining the dragon's cocks.  
  
The one in his hand was rapidly loosing its erection, and Lance took pity on Keith and let it go, his hand sticky with seed.  The other cock though, it had stayed hard and dripping, like Keith had never come at all.  In fact, Keith was still making breathy, aroused little noises as he tried to recover from his orgasm, and all Lance could think of is that having sex with a dragon was a fucking brilliant idea, because they could go twice.  
  
And if those cocks were unconnected, then Lance could make him have two orgasms at the same time.  It sounded amazing, and Lance almost wanted to test out that theory immediately.  Wait until Keith's rut filled his shaft to throbbing once again and fuck him hard, with both hands on those cocks.  
  
Instead, he took pity, pushing Keith onto his back and leaning over him, taking a deep breath before swallowing down as much of his hard cock as he could.  The head slipped between his lips and into his throat easy, his lips pushing Keith's foreskin back as he tasted him, bitter and salty and musky, and as Lance swirled his tongue on the underside of Keith's dick, he could feel it leak precum into his throat.  It had to be one drop for every time he stroked Keith's sensitive spot beneath the head with the back of his tongue.  Pulling back up slowly, Lance spared a glance towards Keith's face, and saw how the delicate doll-like features of this form had shattered into a million pieces, his cheeks flaming red and his mouth ravaged, tears dripping from his eyes as spit escaped his lips.  His eyes were scrunched up in pleasure, and his throat glowed purple with fire as Keith did his best to keep quiet.  
  
It was a shame he hadn't started watching sooner, Lance thought, sucking hard and fast as he watched the fire drake fall apart.  
  
The sense of power was addicting—when he joked about having a dragon between his thighs in the academy, it definitely hadn't been in this context.  But Lance felt like the strongest person fucking alive as he teased and pleasured a fire drake, one of the largest and most powerful breeds of dragons in existence.  At this moment, for as long as he could make it last, Lance owned this fire drake, and he could do anything he wanted to him.  
  
The thought made Lance's skin hot and him even more enthusiastic to do a good job.  He wanted to be so good to Keith that the dragon didn't need any convincing, that he'd just share his warmth and his body with Lance unprompted.  
  
He hummed as he sucked and swallowed around the velvety weight in his mouth, his tongue tracing veins under Keith's skin and his teeth gently teasing the foreskin back when he got too enthusiastic to properly cover them.  Keith writhed, his chest heaving, and Lance kneaded the palmfuls of perfect ass in his hands, pulling the cheeks apart so his finger could circle around that sweet hole.  
  
He pushed in just slightly, and that's all it took.  Keith jerked and came in Lance's mouth without so much as a warning, and Lance was almost disappointed in how quick it went.  
  
The fire drake slumped back, going limp with a pleased rumble.  "Fuck.  Never mind my previous protests.  This was definitely a good idea.  Grape-like feeling and all."  
  
"Told you I was right," Lance bragged, running his palm over one of Keith's smooth thighs.  Something in him was super pleased, happy that Keith thought he'd been good.  "You're really into that, aren't you?  Being a pretty little pillow princess."  
  
The dragon sat right back up, his post orgasm bliss replaced with a vicious glare.  "I'm a what?"  
  
"Ack!  Never mind—I said nothing!" Lance yelped.  
  
"You called me a pillow princess!" Keith snarled. "Get over here, you annoying toothpick."  
  
"What?!" Lance actually scooted back, "I thought we were over the killing me thing!"  
  
Keith grabbed him and dragged him back over, sitting on his lap to keep him from escaping.  The dragon slammed two of his fine-boned fingers in Lance's mouth and glared.  "Suck, pretty boy."  
  
Oh.  Not killing.  More sex.  Lance could get behind that.  
  
Lance pretended that none of this was making his dick hard, but it kind of all was.  
  
He licked, tasting those fingers as they threatened to choke him, and they pulled away a bit too soon for his liking.  Lance shifted his hips up, expecting the dragon to want to finger him open, but Keith's thighs squeezed him hard and he fell back, watching as Keith reached behind himself and—oh.  
  
The drake fingered himself open with Lance's spit, rubbing his half-hard cocks up against Lance's bare stomach.  One caught on his belly button ring and tugged, and Lance moaned, rolling his stomach and his hips as best he could.  Fuck, Keith was so hot.  How could he even be real?  
  
Keith shoved Lance's pants down out of the way and took him immediately into his mouth, swallowing him down to the hilt and wetting him with his forked tongue.  Lance bit his lip, trying to keep from bucking up into Keith's throat.  Boy could breathe fire from there, and he didn't want his dick burned to all hell from choking a dragon.  
  
Still, it was just long enough of a blow job that Lance felt his balls tighten in preparation.  The drake gave him this look, their eyes meeting, and Lance bit his bottom lip, trying to keep from coming before they even hit the good stuff.  
  
Keith pulled back with a pop, aligning his hips with Lance's slick cock before sinking down, burying Lance in delicious tight heat.  
  
Lance grabbed Keith's hips, grounding him, and breathed, "Oh fuck.  You're so hot."  
  
His dick was buried in the hottest piece of ass he'd ever even experienced.  It scorched him as he started to move his hips, pounding in slow and deep into the heat.  
  
Keith purred, grinding his cocks against him as he threw his head back in pleasure.  "Fuck you, fuck—Lance, ahhhhHHH!"  
  
Lance swallowed down his screams, kissing him furiously as he picked up his pace, pounding into the fire drake with force.  
  
He caught Keith around the waist and shoved him back, twisting his hips, so his face was squished into the rock floor and his ass was in the air.  
  
"Lance, the fuck—?" Keith yelped.  
  
Lance wasted no time in mounting him, fucking in harshly at the new angle, draping himself over Keith's back and reaching for the drake's cocks.  
  
He squeezed them both in his palms as best as he could, his handjob sloppy as his thrusts interrupted each stroke, but the noise Keith let out was so hot that Lance knew he wasn't doing that shitty of a job.  
  
He fucked Keith until he saw stars, felt like he was melting into the scorching heat of the dragon's skin, and helpless to do anything but moan the best version of the dragon's name that he could pronounce between the boy's shoulder blades.  Keith shuddered and came, screaming as he experienced two orgasms at once.  They collapsed together, Lance pinning down Keith's tiny form to the floor.  
  
"How's that for a... ha... pillow princess...?" Keith gasped for air, his voice gone all sweet and soft even as he tried to act smug.  
  
"You're cute," Lance told him, kissing at his neck.  "Baby."  
  
"I should just eat you," Keith grumbled, but he just twisted himself around until he had switched their positions, so now he was laying on Lance's chest like a warm blanket.  
  
"Cute," Lance repeated. 

* * *

Lance didn't really fall asleep again, but he didn't blame the fire drake for doing so.  Ruts tired out wyverns, and it seemed like for dragons, it was just as tiring.  Keith had conked out as soon as Lance had put a shirt on him.  He didn't even wait for Lance to finish redressing himself.  Still, Lance appreciated the cuddling post-orgasm, and the sleepy warmth the dragon exuded without even trying.

Especially as the black dragon poked his head in and snarled.  Lance did his best not to jump at the sound, but he tensed all the same, feeling the monster of a dragon's footsteps shake the whole foundation of the ice cave, and smelling the heavy, acrid breaths of smoke leaking from the ebony drake's mouth as he approached.  
  
Shiro growled as he came to a stop before them, towering over them with silver eyes so sharp Lance felt like the dragon could see into his soul.  "This is exactly why I thought eating you would be a better option."  
  
Lance tightened his arms around Keith.  Shiro wouldn't do anything as long as he still had the fire drake with him, right?  
  
"I helped him out," Lance defended himself, his voice shaking even as Keith nuzzled into his neck in his sleep.  "What's so wrong with that?"  
  
"Taking a liking to tiny folk is always a poor idea," Shiro said, somber.  "You might not be able to tell, _elf_ , but Keirrghk is young—"  
  
"He's about four hundred years old, isn't he?" Lance scoffed.  "He won't be fully grown until he hits four hundred fifty, at least.  I know he's young."  
  
Lance looked Shiro dead in the eye as he made a show of pressing a tender kiss on Keith's brow as he ran his hand down along the dragon's spine, his fingers delighting in the feeling of soft fabric covering warm skin and solid flesh.  He did it all again sneakily for good measure, because he felt bad that Keith was sleeping through a conversation he couldn't even defend himself in, and Lance didn't want to use him as a bargaining chip in Shiro and his metaphorical dick measuring contest any more than he needed.  
  
"Then you understand that he was too inexperienced to spend his rut with a partner!  If you knew that much, then how could you risk it?" Shiro bared his teeth, looking every inch of the terrifying dragon they told stories about back in the academy.  The kind of beast that would roast you down until just your bones before eating your still beating heart.  
  
But as someone who had a few older siblings himself, Lance could see past the dragon bit.  Overprotective older brother was definitely the vibe Lance was getting off of this ebony drake, and it would've been cute if he wasn't threatening Lance's life.  
  
"Risk what?  No one got hurt!  Nothing bad even happened," Lance rubbed circles on Keith's fever-hot back, absorbing his beautiful warmth into his cold palms.  For all the sleeping dragon was his literally shield right now, he still was incredibly comforting just to hold.  He felt safe with Keith by his side, even with the ebony drake literally breathing righteous fury in his very direction.  
  
"Risk him having feelings, risk Keirrghk becoming attached!  He's reckless, elf, and he rarely thinks through his decisions!  Adolescent dragons can imprint on their first sexual partners, you pea-brained fool!" Shiro roared.  The dragon's head was inching closer and closer to Lance's face, and Lance could barely choose where to look before he felt the need to run, panic building blindly in his chest.  If not for Keith weighing him down and a literally wall of ice at his back, Lance was pretty sure he'd have started to sprint by now.  
  
Wait, that implied...  
  
Lance gaped down at the fire drake in his arms.  "I was his first...?"  
  
Shiro snarled, "I hope you're pleased with yourself.  I hope staining him forever with your seed was worth it."  
  
Lance ran his hand through Keith's raven-wing black hair.  It was thick underneath his fingers, soft.  He liked it.  He knew it wasn't real, that none of his attraction was real, that it was all just rut hormones destroying his common sense and rationality.  But he found that right here, right now, Lance thought that being Keith's first was perfect.  That staining the dragon forever with his seed, as Shiro put it, was a dumb and archaic way of thinking, and that having sex with Keith had been his best idea, and that he should do it again.  
  
So he looked up at Shiro and shrugged right back, "If he's old enough to go through rut, then isn't he old enough to have sex?  He was a consenting party here, Shiro."  
  
The dragon snarled at the mispronunciation of his name, taking a threatening step forward, when Keith yawned and opened his eyes, blinking sleepily against Lance's chest.  
  
"Shikghyroh?" He asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he sat up.  "What are you doing?"  
  
The black dragon froze in his steps.  "Keirrghk.  I was verifying that no harm had come to you."  
  
"You smell aggressive," Keith muttered, glaring up at him, "What's wrong?  This is my nest, Shikghyroh, why would you enter it when I'm in rut?"  
  
"I wasn't expecting your human form," Shiro said, backing up further.  "I was worried about you."  
  
"Well I'm fine...?" Keith stretched himself out luxuriously on top of Lance, and he had to dry swallow from how fucking arousing the sight and feel of him moving, the muscles in his skin stretching and twisting against Lance's, all was.  
  
"You have bruises on your neck," Shiro said softly.  
  
"Human skin bruises really easily," Keith rolled his eyes, "You know that, Shiro."  
  
Shiro snorted plumes of black smoke out of his nostrils, "You're being foolish, Keirrghk!  The elf has no intention of becoming anything to you.  He's using you for his own pleasure."  
  
"As am I," Keith sniffed, "It feels really good.  A lot better than being horny for a fucking week with no outlet.  Now leave, Shikghyroh, before I give in to my desire to protect my nest from rival dragons."  
  
The ebony drake retreated once again, but Lance had the feeling that it wouldn't be the last they'd see of him.  
  
"Stupid Shiro," Keith muttered, snuggling back comfortably on Lance's chest.  
  
"How old are you, really?" Lance asked.  "Because he keeps talking to you like you're a child."  
  
"Somewhere in my late-third century?" Keith yawned against his collarbone, "My egg was abandoned so I have no clue when I hatched.  I didn't count years until Shiro found me—that was two hundred and twelve years ago."  
  
"So you're fully grown when you hit four fifty, right?" Lance asked, feeling his cheeks flush as he realized the dragon was a bit younger than he'd originally pegged him as.  
  
"Yup," Keith nodded, "I think that'll be in 60 or so years.  Or whenever my body starts looking it, I guess."  
  
"Do you feel like I took advantage of you for being older?" Lance double-checked.  
  
"Wait, how old are you?" Keith asked, surprised.  
  
"I'm approaching five hundred soon.  I'm an elf, we are kinda long lived," Lance admitted.  
  
"Damn," Keith said, "I forgot you weren't like a human.  I thought you were like 17 or something."  
  
"I look it, but the pointed ears and blue skin should’ve given me away," He joked.  "Still, I'm technically an adult, and you're kind of... not?  You may look like an 18 year old human, but that doesn't really matter. Are you still comfortable with that?"  
  
"I could've melted your bones in a second," Keith deadpanned.  "That should be enough proof for everyone that there's nothing we did that I didn't wholly consent to."  
  
"Just making sure," Lance ran his hand down Keith's back.  "Shiro was under the impression you were a virgin."  
  
Keith snorted, "Shiro also thinks I'm a still hatchling."  
  
Lance didn't know how to take that.  He didn't really have any right to be disappointed.  
  
"...Still, he's right.  I'd never been as intimate with anyone as I was with you."  
  
"...wait, what do you mean?"  
  
"I mean we made plans to have sex but my partner fell in rut before I felt ready and he found another dragon to satisfy his needs," Keith snapped, "I even got so far as letting him pin me down before I chickened out, okay?  It was decades ago, let me be."  
  
"So you were a virgin!" Lance squeaked, "You chickened out?  Why?"  
  
Keith pouted, "He was a hundred years older than me.  I mean, he was closer to my age than Shiro, who's two hundred years older than me, but... I wasn't his first anything.  He talked down to me a lot.  At first I thought I liked it, but when it got too real and I told him to back off, he called me childish.  It all kind of added up until his rut when he started getting aggressive with me, and he held me down even when I started trying to legitimately break free, and he mocked me for being scared when I told him I wanted out.  Shiro might've almost killed him when he found us like that—it's why Shiro hovers.”

Lance froze, "Wait, what the fuck?  That's not you chickening out, that's him being abusive.  That was you getting out of a dangerous situation.  He was trying to rape you!"  
  
"Rut pheromones, they make you want it," Keith said, sitting up and curling his knees back into his chest.  "If what we did an hour ago is rape, then yes, he tried to rape me."  
  
"No no no," Lance sat them both up, putting his hands on Keith's shoulders.  "Did I ignore your boundaries?  Did I get aggressive with you?  Did you ever feel uncomfortable or scared?"  
  
"No, I told you, I could've roasted you alive if you ever did anything I didn't like, I meant _you_ couldn't consent—" Keith shook his head.  
  
"Then it wasn't rape, okay?  Because I wanted it, and you wanted it, and everyone came out happy."  
  
"I wanted to be with him back then too, because that's what a rut does to your brain!  Are you telling me that you'd honestly have wanted anything to do with me if I wasn't in rut?"  
  
"Well, yeah, maybe!  I'm having a much better time having steamy dragon sex with your hot piece of ass than I would be freezing to death outside in a blizzard.  If those were my two options, hell yeah I'd pick the sex, rut or no rut!"  
  
Keith groaned, "The blizzard's over, Lance.  It was this morning.  You can leave whenever you want."  
  
Lance blinked.  "Really?"  
  
"Yes, really.  I can feel the still cold of the air outside.  It's a bright sunny morning, chilly enough to freeze a human solid, but safe to travel for you, I think."  
  
"Your rut's not over yet, though," Lance said numbly.  
  
Keith shrugged, "I've survived ruts on my own before.  Don't you have family?  People who'd be worried about you if you vanished?"  
  
Lance very much did have family that would be worried about him.  But he felt indebted to Keith, and he wanted to help.  Leaving now sounded crazy.  
  
"They won't be that worried!  I owe you, don't I?  You saved me from Shiro, and—"  
  
"And you thanked me for it, already.  Our debt is settled, frostelf."  
  
"No, Keith... if I leave now, will I ever even see you again?" Lance wrapped his arms around the fire drake, burying his head in the crook of his shoulder where black ink hair met the pale peach of his skin.  
  
"No?" Keith guessed, "I don't know.  Lance.  My instincts say yes, but I don't think we'll be staying in these frozen caves for much longer.  We bunkered down here for my rut, not for a permanent nest."  
  
"So you can't make me leave!" Lance gambled, praying that he won, "Not if we'll never see each other again."

And for a moment, it felt like he had won.  Keith snuggled against his side, quiet, all traces of the argument lost to quiet breaths and closed eyes.  Lance treasured the moment, where he could hold Keith's hand in his and simply relax.  Simply be.

"But I could, Lance," Keith whispered, too quiet for Lance to hear, "because if you stay with me too much longer, then I'll become attached to you.  Feelings, like Shiro said.  And we don't want that."


	3. Part 1: Chapter 3

Mid-morning saw Keith turning back into his natural dragon self, but this time, he let Lance tuck himself up in the soft skin between the ridge of his facial scales and his neck, the hot glow of purple in his throat warming Lance down to his toes.  Lance idly picked at the sparse flaky bits of skin around his scales, cleaning out the occasional bits of dirt much too small for Keith to get while he was this big.  He noticed that the scales were oiled underneath, and that if he lifted a big scale, he could spread around the oil and help with the dragon's dry skin problem.  
  
Part of Lance wanted to tease the fire drake for his lackluster hygiene, but he knew why the dragon's skin was in this condition.  The weather here didn't suit a red dragon the way it would a white one; an ice drake would relish in the cold, but Keith had to burn extra energy trying to keep himself from freezing, and add the stress of it along with the dryness of the weather meant the dragon's skin wasn't having a good day.  
  
Plus, Lance bet his money that the dirt and excess oils were only there because the fire drake hadn't found a large enough lake to really submerge himself in that wasn't frozen solid.  
  
He smiled, focusing on his magic as he hauled over a pile of snow.  He carefully lifted it, and then spread it over a particularly dirty section of skin.  Keith's heat melted the snow, and Lance carefully manipulated the water to wash off the dirt and oil from the dragon's skin, starting with his neck but moving down his chest and his front legs before the water was too filthy to be helped and he had to grab new snow to begin again. 

He repeated this process until he turned back and noticed one of Keith's massive, galaxy eyes staring straight at him.  
  
Lance shrieked, dropping his water and jumping a foot in the air.  "You're awake?!"  
  
"Feels nice," Keith hummed deep in his massive throat, his eyes drifting closed again.  "I haven't been able to bathe since we flew up north.  Didn't even realize how itchy I was until you started grooming me."  
  
"Oh.  I know I didn't ask, but..." Lance summoned more snow under his control, "Mind if I finish?"  
  
"Go ahead.  Stay away from my slit though.  We just got those fuckers to calm down and I want to get a good five hours of sleep in before I deal with them again."  
  
Ah.  His pouch was once again bulging out, just enough that Lance could discern the shape of Keith's cocks hidden away, but they hadn't yet grown too aroused to fit in their sheath.  Lance was cool with not touching them for a while, even though he kind of wanted Keith to take them out so he could rub his cheek on one.  Rut hormones talking there.  
  
Lance focused on the task at hand, polishing up Keith until he glistened, a brilliant crimson in the reflected light of the ice cave.  
  
"You're gorgeous," He whispered, "Keirrgt."  
  
"Keirrghk," The dragon sighed, blinking his eyes open.  "I don't think you have the capability to say 'rrghk.'  You can't growl like I do."  
  
"Rugct," Lance tried.  "Yeah, no.  I can't speak draconian."  
  
"I like Keith; it sounds elvish," The fire drake said, "Or like it's part of the common tongue."  
  
"It's closer to elvish," Lance admitted, "Frostelves don't really use this word, because we live in a tundra and trees are kind of rare, so all forests are just 'ciyth' to me, but if I spoke in the wood elf dialect, Keith would mean 'the windy woods,' or the howling forest."  
  
Keith didn't really smile, but something in his monstrous eyes looked excited.  "It's pretty.  Delicate."  
  
"That's elvish for you," Lance smirked, slapping one of Keith's scales in jest, "No snarling like in your tongue."  
  
"My name in draconian may be rough to your ears but it is innate to me.  Our names are true, unlike yours; our parents don't give them to us.  We just know them from the moment we hatch until the day we die," Keith looked at him, gaze unwavering, "Keith is the first name anyone has ever given me.  You don't know how much that means."  
  
Lance stared up at him in awe.  "I'm all sorts of firsts for you, aren't I?"  
  
Keith huffed a plume of black out of his nostrils, his eyes drifting shut once again.  "Shiro feared you for a reason."  
  
"Aw, did I make you feel a soft feeling?" Lance cooed.  
  
"N-no.  Shut up," Keith's face glowed a bit purple around his cheeks, the closest equivalent for a dragon blushing.  
  
"All warm and fuzzy inside—"  
  
"I'll eat you, Lance."  
  
Lance waggled his eyebrows.

Keith huffed at him and curled up back to sleep.  But without a task, Lance had nowhere else to turn his attentions.  Plus he had missed dinner, so he wanted food.

He left an obnoxiously loud kiss on the scales near the dragon’s mouth and went off in search of the way out of the tunnels.  He had little clue how he’d found Keith in the first place, so backtracking was nearly impossible.  

Instead, Lance went by virtue of his goosebumps.  Did it feel like it was getting colder?  Because that was the way he wanted to go.

It wasn’t exactly a foolproof plan because unlike going where the warmth was—Keith— there just wasn't one source of cold.  The cold was everywhere.

Eventually, Lance tumbled out of a tunnel and into bright bright snow, the mist and storm cleared off the mountains and left it glittering in the cold diamond sunlight.  His second eyelids slammed down so fast he sneezed.

Blearily staring out at the snow, all Lance wanted to do was climb back down the tunnels and cuddle Keith back closer to him until he stopped shivering.

Lance fingered the bow on his back.  He’d have plenty of time to snuggle the dragon once he had some solid food in his belly.

Oh, warm soup.  Warm soup sounded so good right now.

Luckily, Lance could feel his pores sealing up tight and the hair on his arms raising enough to trap in the heat it could, and with his natural defenses as a frostelf in place, he pulled his bow from his back, summoned an arrow made of ice between his fingers, and narrowed his eyes, trying to sense any signs of movement nearby.  It felt good to hunt, natural, and the glow of the morning was encouraging.

With hopes for warm food and an even warmer dragon to cuddle with, Lance set out into the mountainside with a spring in his step.

* * *

There were literally a million rabbits.  The snowshoe hares were so common that Lance had strung up six of them in less than two hours, and he was a good hunter, but not that good, and especially not that good with rabbits and no traps out.

But as weird as the rabbit abundance was, even weirder was the literal lack of anything else.  No foxes, wolves, deer, elk, moose… hell, Lance hadn't even seen evidence of a bear.  No wonder the rabbits were thriving; scarce vegetation was the only factor limiting their population.

And the amount of rabbits wasn't the only thing weird about them; these rabbits were incredibly fearless.

Lance had even tested out that theory by trying to pick one up, and the docile, fat little bunny had no qualms about sitting happily in his grip, it's little nose sniffing like crazy as it thumped its legs against his arm.  Lance pet it absentmindedly, which it seemed to appreciate, but that didn't change the fact he was weirded out by the creature’s behavior.  This absolutely wasn't normal.

He heard a voice clear its throat behind him, and Lance turned around to see a tall human man with dark salt and pepper hair and a ragged scar across his high cheekbones.

“Keith loves them,” the human said, and it was Shiro’s deep growl that came out.

Lance stiffened, but it didn't seem like the dragon was there to pick another fight.  “Keith does?”

“Comes out here and spoils them all.  They think you’re going to feed them treats like he does.”

That was one way to make Lance feel guilty about the six dead rabbits he had strung up on his belt.

“I'm guessing you two both eat all their natural predators too,” He guessed.

Shiro nodded, eyes downcast, “I… I want to apologize about my behavior earlier.  When Keith is vulnerable, it's hard to step back and think rationally.  His pheromones don't induce me into a rut, but they do make me angry and agitated, overly protective of him.  Now that I've stepped away, it's easier to have a clear head.”

Lance hummed, something inexplicably heavy lifting off his shoulders, “I get it.   It's a lot easier to think out here too.  Like when I’m with Keith, it feels like I'm drowning in hot cider; too much of a good thing.  The cold helped me too.”

Shiro nodded, understanding.  Still, something sharp lingered in his tone.  “And your intentions?”

“I want to ride out his rut with him.  I genuinely like him,” Lance lifted up the rabbit comfortably snuggled in his gloved palms, “He’s got so many layers to him and every new fact I learn just makes me like him more.  That's what clearing my head out here got me to realize.  It's not just his rut.  I like him, I want to know so much more about him.  He’s still this mystery to me.  And I want to solve him.”

Shiro nodded.  “I’ll stay out of you two’s way.  I may not approve, but you’re right.  I can't keep treating him like a child.  He might not have been ready last time he tried to do this, but it's been a century since then, and you aren't like Sxckoros.”

“Skoros?” Lance asked.  He knew he was mispronouncing it, but Shiro would just have to deal with it.

Shiro grimaced, “You still can't pronounce any draconian.  How quote-unquote ‘Keith’ even puts up with that, I’ll never know.   _Sxckoros_ was a indigo drake from the western reaches, young, and he seemed trustworthy enough.  And Keith was lonely… he wanted something like what Allura and I have, and Sxckoros wasn't looking for anything more than a warm body.  He found that body elsewhere.”

“He was still an adolescent back then!” Lance snapped, “The fact you even let Skuros near Keith—!”

Shiro growled, “I wasn't paying close enough attention then, but I am now.  I won't kill you, but if you break my little brother's heart, if you hurt him, then you’ll wish I had given you something as merciful as death.”

“Stop threatening me for your past mistakes, Shiro!” Lance snapped, putting the now frightened rabbit down.  “I thought you came out here to make amends.  Learn from how you fucked up back then and own up to it, don't take it out on me!”

“He’s doing the same damn thing with you!” Shiro snarled.  “Am I supposed to ignore him being reckless and diving headfirst into a relationship he has no experience with?!  I've spent over half my life protecting that fledgling—He is my brother!”

Lance faltered, but he swallowed down his apprehension.  “There's a thin line between love and smothering.  I think Keith keeps snapping back because you’re walking that line and he’s afraid you’ll fall on the wrong side.  Shiro, you didn’t come out here to fight me.  And I’m not out here to fight you either.”

This time, Shiro took a step back.  “You’re… you’re right.  Tell Keith… tell Keith I’m going north to see my life-mate.  You two will continue down your own path, regardless of whether or not I intervene.  And I know, as much as I hate to admit it, the only danger Keith is in with you is of a broken heart, and I can’t protect him from that.  It’s already too late.”

And with that, Shiro erupted into his full dragon size, his clothes shredded in his abrupt expansion.  The massive ebony drake snarled, shaking out his wings in the early afternoon sun.

“Take care of him,” Shiro said, his wings heaving his form into the air, the rush of winds sending Lance tumbling backwards across the snow.  With another stroke, the dragon shot up into the sky faster than anything that size should, and Lance could do nothing more than watch Shiro turn into nothing more than a tiny spec in the clouds.

He gripped the jewel of his necklace, staring after.  For at least right now, Lance had every intention of keeping that promise.

* * *

When Lance returned to the cave, Keith was none too happy about the rabbits.

“I hope you enjoy the taste of Rainbow Sour Sprinkles’ flesh,” Keith snapped, crossing his arms. “And that Sir Bunniesworth is just as delicious!”

“You named them?!” Lance cried.  And with names like _that_ , too?!

“My only companions on this whole entire mountain and you slaughtered them, you monster!” Keith raged, grabbing Lance by the front of his shirt.  “I should set you on fire and roast you, see how you like it!”

Lance was literally frozen in fear.  He glanced at the rabbits roasting over the fire, then back to Keith, then back at the rabbits.  There was a difference between loving some wild rabbits and eating someone else’s pet!  Fuck, Shiro wasn’t even going to need to rip Lance a new one.  Keith’d do it for him.

The drake’s dark eyes flashed, before he smoothed down Lance’s quarter-shirt gently and said sweetly, “I’m just fucking with you.”

Lance squawked.

Keith chuckled, snorted, then started full-on laughing.  His overly large shirt hung off of him like a poorly fitted tunic, and his bare legs looked intoxicating in the dim firelight.  Lance couldn’t tell if it was the rut hormones or just how _into_ Keith he was that he thought Keith was sexy even when he was laughing so hard he snorted.

“You really thought I named all of them?” Keith hiccuped, “There’s like a million!  I think they’re super cute but I’m not going to make you starve, Lance.”

“Thank fuck,” Lance breathed, “I almost pissed myself.”

Keith scrunched up his nose, “Don’t talk about your dick.”

“What?  How was _that_ talking about my dick?!”

“I’m in rut, that’s the first place my mind is going to go!  I’m thinking about your dick even when I logically shouldn’t be!” Keith groaned, covering up his face, “Fine.  Eat your rabbit.  And then… then you’re going to fuck me so hard I can actually sleep 8 hours tonight.  If all I can think about is your dick, we’re about to run out of time before this gets unbearable for me again.”

“Aaah, day two of seven,” Lance sighed, “You’re such a romantic, Keith.  I’m swooning.”

Keith gave him a look.  “...do you want me to court you?  Do you want me to bring you flowers?  Must I remind you that yesterday, you were the one who literally begged me to have sex with you?”

“Because you literally wouldn’t even jerk off on your own!” Lance protested, dancing around Keith when he tried to smack him for his vulgar comment.  Lance was light as a feather on his toes--he didn’t even sink into the snow, not like Keith who was sunk in up to his calves.

They chased each other, teasing, and Lance couldn’t help but laugh, a beaming smile painted on his cheeks even in the cold.  Even as the sun was setting, the cave of ice alit with the colors of fire, the elf couldn’t help but feel as if Keith was like the sun.  His own personal star, the source of all the warmth in the world.

This is what he’d meant when he’d talked to Shiro.  It was this feeling that made him want more; not the pleasure Keith’s rut brung them both.  It was this feeling that had him staying despite how concerned his family must be for him, staying despite all of Shiro’s terrifying warnings.  Because Lance held on, and kept holding, in fear that if he ever let go, he wouldn’t find Keith ever again, and all the warmth in the world would be gone.

“Dance with me?” Lance asked, sweeping up behind Keith and humming.

“I don’t know how,” Keith said with a roll of his eyes, but he hummed along too, the sound of their voices echoing back in a symphony all of their own making.

Lance wrapped both of his arms around Keith, catching him around the middle and tucking him into his broader chest.  The frostelf kissed at Keith’s bare neck, a rarity with how long his black hair was, and squeezed him tight.  “We start like this.  Just swaying, just being close.”

Keith melted into the embrace, his hands covering Lance’s and his warmth permeating throughout the room.  It felt like holding a glowing ember from a fire, and Lance had never wanted so much to just keep his boy.  Lance wanted to bring him back to his mama, show him off to the whole world.

Lance was scared that he too, like Shiro, was walking a thin line.  It was hard not to fall.

“What next?” Keith asked.

“We move,” Lance said, holding the smaller man’s waist in his and swirling him around, “One, two, three, one, two, three… move your feet to the rhythm.  Follow my lead.”

Keith stumbled back and stepped on Lance’s toes, but the frostelf only laughed, righted them both, and swept them on again.

Soon enough, Keith was moving his feet like a natural, and Lance felt comfortable enough to pick the dragon up, swing him around, before setting him back down to his feet like a feather and continuing.

Keith was quiet, staring up at Lance.  “I’d never thought about dancing like this before…”

“Never?”

“Never,” Keith confirmed.  “Dragons don’t dance on the ground.  We dance in the sky.”

“And what do you think?  Does it compare?” Lance teased.  Dancing in the sky though… that sounded like something Lance would want to see.

“It’s almost as…” Keith paused and sniffed, “...is something burning?”

They both paused, staring at one another.  Realization dawned slowly, then all at once.

“The rabbits!” Lance shrieked.

“You can’t waste Sir Bunniesworth’s sacrifice, Lance!” Keith yelped, hastily reaching in with his bare hands to remove the overcooked rabbit from the fire.  “Rainbow Sour Sprinkles gave her life for you and you scorched her to bits!”

“You distracted me!”

“You’re a bad chef!” Keith laughed, handing over the rabbit.  “The worst!”

“How would you know?!  You don’t even cook your food!” Lance sulked.

“I do, actually.”

“Wait, what?”

“Lance.  I breathe fire.  I am fire-resistant.  When I eat things whole, they cook in my mouth first.”

“... and you put _me_ in your mouth that first night?!”

“You were never in any danger,” Keith brushed him off.  “Now are you going to eat that or not?”

Lance bit into the burnt rabbit vindictively, just because Keith said that.  Still with the both of them together, it was hard not to smile.

* * *

Keith hadn’t been lying earlier that night when he’d said soon his rut would become unbearable.  As a human, it was easy enough for Keith to sneak off and pleasure himself even if Lance was busy--namely, taking a bath and washing off all the sweat and grime that clung to him (once he’d convinced Keith to melt him a tiny pool of water to soak in).  

And Keith had.  It had been a unique kind of torture for Lance to hear Keith’s whiny moans, his shaking breaths as he fisted his own cock like he’d die if he didn’t find relief.  Lance had found himself with a similar problem in his rapidly cooling bath, and had only managed to will it down enough to fit into his pants after he’d lingered long enough that the water had started to become frigid enough to kill any man’s interest.

But after Lance’s bath, the dragon cuddled up close, his tunic slipping off of his shoulder and his legs, bare and warm, rubbed against him.  Like a needy cat, Keith trilled at him, “Lance, please…”

And what was any young elf to say to that but fuck yes?

Lance tugged Keith on top of him and kissed him, their tongues dancing together.

And even after he’d fucked Keith twice, he still had enough energy to need his cocks sucked.  Both of them.  Lance’s orgasms were currently coming at a rate of once every four orgasms for keith.  Which, since the drake was the one in rut, wasn’t too surprising, but still.

Lance had never thought he’d get tired of sex.  And he wasn’t quite there yet.  But he could definitely see how only a week’s worth of this was possible.  Any longer and his dick might fall off.

Mid-afternoon of Lance’s third day with Keith had them curled up together outside in the snow, soaking up any natural warmth on the cold sunny day.  Keith was making it a little slushy, but Lance appreciated his extra heat as well.

It was introspective kind of day, and one where they hadn’t done much of anything sexual.  Lance almost wondered if Keith’s rut was over, given how the dragon had yet to give him a sign.

“You ever think of fucking me?” Lance wondered.  “Like, isn't a rut supposed to be all about knocking up the lady dragons?”

“It just makes us horny, Lance.  And horny just means horny.  I can get off however I want.”

“But don't you ever want to just… switch?”

“Is this your subtle way of telling me you want me to top?”

Lance groaned, “No!  Yes?  I don't know!  I’m not used to anyone taking me seriously.  Seeing you underneath me is a rush—a good rush.  But I want you to enjoy everything we do too.”

“I do enjoy it,” Keith said softly, grabbing Lance’s elbow and tugging him on top of his.  “I hadn't even thought of switching.  I figured it’d hurt too much, the way I usually am.”

Ah.  The two cocks thing.

Lance had to admit, it didn't turn him off as much as it probably was supposed to when he thought of his ass bulging, his hole stretched thin to cover both appendages.  Of two cocks rubbing hard against his prostrate, Lance melting into a drooling puddle underneath and cumming untouched.

Yeah okay, he thought it was hot.

“We’ve got oil.  There's a ton under your scales, you secret grease monster!  Just a healthy amount of that, a lot of prep, and it’ll be basically painless,” Lance coaxed.  Or maybe it wouldn’t be painless, but Lance knew a couple healing spells, and no amount of pain would stop him from fulfilling his fantasy… especially since he knew how hot it got him.

“You sure?” Keith checked.  “Because I don't care enough about topping to want to hurt you.  Pain isn't sexy.”

Lance snickered, “There's a lot of people out there that disagree with you.”  Lance might’ve even been one of them--not that he’d had enough time to really experiment in his past relationships.  But Keith was still relatively virginal; Lance could leave off bringing up the kinks for later and they could just take it easy for now.

“For me,” Keith amended with rolled eyes.  “Pain is not sexy for me.”

“I won't argue, there's no point in switching if you get too freaked out about it,” Lance agreed, something slightly disappointed in his gut, “But I think you could make it good for me.  I trust you not to hurt me.”

Keith hummed in thought, keeping Lance securely above him.  “I’m considering it.  But you are going to need to walk me through it.  I don't know how to make it good or whatever.”

“Can do,” Lance promised.

And with that thought securely lodged in their minds, it took less than thirty minutes for Lance to be on his knees, completely naked, his dick so hard that he could feel its pulse in his hand, and with Keith splayed over his back, cocks nudging Lance’s bum with every movement.

Lance moaned, his ass up in the air as Keith lined up.  "Be gentle with me, Keith!"  
  
Keith pressed him down into the floor with one palm, rubbing his two cocks together up the line of Lance's ass.  The drake's precum smeared from his taint to his puckered hole, easing the way.  The oil from Keith's scales was dripping out of Lance's ass, and he felt fucked open already just from the prep.  
  
Keith finally guided one of his cockheads to Lance's hole, rubbing the tip on his rim, before sinking in slow.  
  
Lance had taken bigger dicks before, but the stretch was still so so good, and he'd been over-prepped, so he just enjoyed the sweet slide until Keith sunk in to the hilt.  His other cock rubbed against Lance's ass cheek, a hot reminder that this was only half of what he was getting tonight.  
  
"I'm good," Lance moaned, rubbing his butt back up on Keith's dicks. "Give me more, Keith, I want all of you."  
  
Keith worked himself in and out of Lance gently, before he pulled out entirely.  Lance whined, trying to grind back and get that delicious pressure back inside him, when he felt the head of the other penis join the first in pressing at his entrance.  Keith slowly pressed both members inside, making a pinched whine as the tightness of Lance's ass made him rub his sensitive cocks together as he sunk in.  
  
Lance hadn't felt the burn earlier but now it was overwhelming, there was so much in him.  He'd never had two dicks at the same time before, and he could barely breathe, even though Keith was holding him and pressing kisses on his back as Lance trembled through the sensation.  
  
Both of those cocks put delicious pressure on his prostate, and as Keith began to move, Lance could do nothing but gasp as the heads slammed back into his sweet spot.  He warbled, trying to ease his way into it, but Keith picked up his pace, and Lance's breaths became fucked out, desperate keens as he tried to match the drake's relentless pace.  
  
"So good, so hot, Lance," Keith begged, his hand coming down to stroke Lance's weeping cock.  Lance jolted, bucking into the gentle touch; each squeeze of those fingers around his shaft felt like liquid fire poured straight on his nerves, so so so hot and so good and everything hurt just a little.  And when he sunk back, he felt Keith rub up against his prostate, and Lance could do nothing but let noises he wasn't even sure he was making escape his throat and let it all overwhelm him.  
  
With all of this, there was no way he'd last long.  The pleasure was building way too fast, his dick purple with strain and leaking pre-cum out the slit, his balls tightening and drawing up as a fire built in his stomach.  Lance could do nothing but scream as Keith milked his cock and fucked him raw open, overloading his senses and making him cum all over the floor of the cavern.  
  
And Keith didn't pull out right away; he instead kept at it, his thumbs spreading Lance's ass cheeks.  
  
When the drake did cum, there was so much liquid.  He could feel it hot inside of him, and a warm rivulet dripped down his taint to his balls, lingering there as the two of them panting for breath.  As Keith pulled out, another glob escaped him with a slick noise, and Lance blushed when his dick twitched from how into being stuffed full of Keith's cum he was.  
  
Keith kind of bonelessly draped himself over Lance, his breathing even more intense than his own, and Lance slowly let them both down as he let his forearms give way to gravity.  Lance twisted as best he could, reaching back to pat Keith on his cute butt.  
  
"You okay?" Lance verified.  
  
"Peachy," Keith said, pressing Lance down with his weight.  "You?"  
  
"Peachier," he teased, "As much as I like having you as a human blanket, I want to turn over and you're making that difficult."  
  
Keith rolled off him with a grunt, and Lance made a quick grabby motion for him that was too little, too late.  The cute boy who'd just rocked his world was replaced with a monstrous drake, large enough that Lance was surprised that Keith didn't accidentally squish and kill him while transforming.  Still, dragon-sized Keith could be comfortable, Lance thought.  
  
"Hey, remember how you warmed me up that first night?" Lance asked, sitting up.  "Can we do that again?"  
  
"You want in my mouth?" Keith yawned.  
  
"Hell yeah, that was weirdly comfortable.  Like falling asleep in a bath," Lance nodded.  "And I'm relatively convinced you won't cook me alive, despite you capability to."

Keith snorted, rolling his eyes.  "First you freak about it, next you're begging for a round two."

"It's not my fault you're hard as fuck to cuddle!" Lance huffed.  He didn't bother putting his clothes back on as he climbed up Keith's scales, just pushing at the line of the dragon's mouth until Keith let him inside.  
  
"You taste all bitter and salty," Keith whined as soon as Lance sat down on his tongue.  He slurred all his words, Lance's weight keeping him from doing more than mumbling.  
  
"Deal with it!" Lance yelled back.  "More than half of this cum is yours, anyway!"  
  
He curled up on the dragon's tongue, relishing in the almost stifling heat.  Keith purred, his chest rumbling, and Lance wrapped the drake's tongue securely around him as he nestled in.  
  
It was a very comfortable nap, and almost as good as cuddling.  It wasn't Keith's fault that Lance's eyes stayed open the whole time, his head racing.  His body felt good, felt sated, but his heart wanted something more.  Only trapped in the cavern of Keith's mouth did Lance let himself think, 'What if... what if I brought him home with me?'  They only had this week, that was something they both were supposed to know, both supposed to want, but Lance let the dark and quiet ease him into thinking forbidden thoughts.

What if they never did say goodbye?

 


	4. Part 1: Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so late because I'm a piece of shit who didn't want to draw any illustrations for it, so I kept putting it off. Whoops? My bad, sorry.

The fourth day saw Keith tugging at his belly button ring, teasing.  "Did I ever tell you how into this I was?"   
  
"My piercings?" Lance laid sprawled out, his shirt back on for once as he'd just finished hunting for (and making Keith cook) a rabbit.  It was still roasting on the fire, and would be for a while if he wanted it to have a good flavor.   
  
"Mhm," the dragon nodded, tracing his hands up Lance's abs until he reached the hem of Lance's shirt.  "Do you have any other ones?"   
  
"My ears are pierced," Lance bit his lip, watching Keith slip his fingers under the thin fabric, teasing and skirting his fingers around his nipple.   
  
Keith tugged the quarter shirt up the inch he needed for it to reveal the whole of Lance's chest.   
  
"No shit.  I saw.  What about these?" Keith tweaked his sensitive nub, leaning down to look closer.   
  
"Never really thought about nipple piercings," Lance gulped as Keith leaned down and sucked it into his mouth. "Fuck."   
  
Keith scraped his teeth gently over his skin, swirling his tongue before pulling back, admiring his handiwork.  Lance's nipple was a dark dusky blue, peaked and slick with spit.   
  
"You should.  I like playing with these, but I can imagine a little ring or a ball, so I could tug."   
  
Lance nodded, his blood quickly pooling south.  "And what if I got my dick pierced?"   
  
Keith paused for a moment, considering.  "I could show you what I'd do."   
  
Lance spread his legs wider.  "Show me."   
  
Keith's grin turned wicked.   
  
He laid down, his lips pressing a filthy kiss to the ring on Lance's belly button.  He trailed his mouth gently down Lance's treasure trail, working his thumbs into the tight leather pants Lance had worn out hunting that first day.  "You're hairy for an elf.  Aren't you all supposed to be hairless?”

“Lies and misconceptions honestly,” Lance protested. “All elves have body hair!  I don't even know where that rumor came from!”

Lance flushed as Keith yanked his pants down to his knees unceremoniously, his cock bouncing out and stiffening in the cold air.   
  
Keith traced that fuzz down his stomach with a curious hand, until his fingers rested at the base of Lance's dick.  "You're bigger than me," he mentioned softly, his hand wrapping around the width of Lance gently, barely there pressure that had Lance bite his lip and squeeze his eyes shut from how good it felt.   
  
"Don't tease, Keith," Lance begged, as Keith leaned down and tasted him with the briefest flick of his forked tongue.   
  
"Tease?  I would never," His dark purple eyes sparkled with mirth as he pressed sweet little kisses to the tip.  "You see, Lance, if you had a piercing here... I'd pull it into my mouth, tugging just slightly..."   
  
Lance bucked up into the loose curl of Keith's hand, becoming increasingly desperate.  "Keith."   
  
Keith took the head into his mouth, massaging circles into the bottom of it with his tongue.  He sucked just hard enough that Lance moaned, shaking as he hooked his leg around Keith's back to try to push himself deeper into that beautiful mouth.  It worked for one brief glorious moment, where Keith’s control slipped and Lance slid so deep into his mouth that he almost hit the back of his throat.   
  
As punishment, Keith’s mouth left his head with a wet pop, and the drake turned and rubbed his soft cheek along it instead, letting Lance buck up into the tight space between Keith's hand and his cheekbones so he could continue to whisper, "And once you'd become a begging moaning mess, I'd spread my precum along my thighs..."

Lance stared at Keith's hand actually gathering some of his own seed, and smearing it sticky along the space of his thighs.  Oh fuck, oh _fuck_.   
  
Keith purred, "And then I'd let you flip me over, and I'd twist my ankles together, and you'd fuck my thighs, so the ball of your piercing would rub me on the underside of my cocks until I can't breathe I’m screaming so loud."   
  
Lance pounced, shoving Keith over and leaning over him, lining up his dick with that sweet spot between the dragon's thick thighs.  Keith obediently crossed his ankles and smirked, wiggling a little to entice him to hurry the fuck up.  And Lance did.  He thrust right between those thighs, his cock sliding in easy, his head rubbing up against Keith's balls before slipping up to rub at the space right between the two.   
  
Keith moaned, squeezing his legs together and arching his back.   
  
Lance set a pace almost too fast, too rough, but just good enough that he had Keith dissolve into a melty mess beneath him.  His cock rubbed up against Keith's twin ones on every thrust, sometimes sandwiched between them.  The drag of Keith’s balls heavy across his cock on every go had Lance swearing through his teeth, all of it too good and too hot.  When Keith took himself in hand and Lance fucked up into that pressure too, he shuddered and lost it, too far gone to make it last.   
  
Keith panted, his cocks covered in Lance's cum and his thighs red from the friction, but he hadn't cum yet himself.  Lance pulled himself out from between those thighs and pressed him over, sucking one dick into his mouth as deep as it could go, and jacking off the other with his hand.   
  
Keith didn't last long either, and Lance didn't withdraw fast enough to escape his face covered in cum.   
  
"I might've been convinced of the benefits of a dick piercing," Lance murmured, magicking the spunk off him with a wave of his hand.   
  
"Yeah?" Keith laughed, "Next rut, you better have one, and I'll make all that come true again."   
  
Lance's dick throbbed at the thought of a next time, but an insidious voice in his head said that there was no next time to look forward to.  His rut was going to end within the week, which meant Keith was leaving these mountains soon.  And there was no guarantee he’d ever come back.

* * *

Considering Keith’s rut, they actually talked far more than Lance thought they would.  Lance blamed his own big mouth for that.

But it was just so easy to talk to Keith; he was a little socially awkward but an avid listener, and his dry humor was both cutting and hilarious when he let it slip.  And despite obviously being physically uncomfortable, he kept their sexual dalliances to a minimum.  Lance had never before thought he’d have a crush on a giant shapeshifting dragon, but here he was, his heart singing every time he made Keith laugh or Keith happily stumble over his words.  It made each time Keith crawled back into his arms, his eyes asking what his mouth could not, that much better.

And best of all, when they came down from their highs, Lance got to enjoy Keith, glassy-eyed and rosy-skinned, in a haze.  So easily pliable that Lance got to kiss his cheeks and his neck and really worship the form in his arms.  And it was that slow, lavish kissing that Lance liked best, because Keith had never been so wholly  _ his _ .  

In those moments, he allowed himself to think forbidden thoughts about flowers and poetry and all the ins and outs of traditional elf courting.  Keith would never be one to appreciate Lance by wearing his family’s traditional wreath of flowers in his hair, and he’d never approach Lance singing the ancient songs of their people.  

It wasn’t like Lance could return the favor either; as far as Lance knew, Keith had no family.  Shiro was only like a brother to him, not actually his brother, and Keith confided softly one evening when Lance was telling him jokes about his own mother, that the dragon had been abandoned as an egg.  He’d never known either of his parents.  If there were any familial traditions Lance could honor, Keith would know less than he.

There were no ancient songs for dragons that Keith could teach him either.  If any existed, Lance couldn’t even speak Keith’s name in his native language, let alone properly sing anything.

The closest they could do to any kind of traditional courting, as far as Lance knew, was to have them both sit together under the stars at night.  Lance had proposed it as a way to get some fresh air and feel refreshed, and it hadn't taken much convincing to get Keith to remain in his human form.

Up on the mountain, the sky seemed to glow so much brighter than they did shining through the thick glass of Lance’s bedroom window.  And with each new cosmic object that Lance noticed, the longer he wanted to just sit there, in the midst of waist deep snow, his clothes damp as Keith’s subconscious heat melted through the white powder and solid ice they were perched on.

“Do you think that’s where people go when they die?” Keith asked quietly.  His eyes were glued to the stars, the thin sliver of the moon’s pale sphere casting his face in ethereal silver.

Lance tugged Keith in closer, so his head would tip onto Lance’s shoulder and he could press his cheek against the drake’s soft hair.  “The stars?  Not exactly.  Elven lore says differently.”

“I always thought my parents were up there, watching over me… but I don’t know the true stories.  Shiro’s not one for myths and legends, and Allura says that fire drakes have vastly different stories than ice drakes.”

“I like that, though,” Lance said, his voice going soft as he stared up at them.  “Elves think each star is sacred and powerful; they were the only things to exist before we did.  When there was no sun or moon, the stars and elves were all that touched the earth.  And when they fall from the sky, their light can be captured in a bottle and used to light places where only the darkest of beings can survive.”

Keith smiled up at him, his eyes fond, “I forgot you elves are weird about stars.  Not like humans.  Humans say the stars grant wishes.”

“Humans also say you can't pour salt on a table without cursing yourself,” Lance dismissed.  “Stars probably could, but they’re more distant than that.  Stars are untouchable; the best you could hope for is to be touched by one’s light.  That's why in Elvish, our formal greeting goes like, ‘ _ elen sila lumenn omentilmo.’ _  That roughly translates to, a star shall shine on the hour of our meeting.”

“Elen sirah lumen omantillo?” Keith repeated hesitantly.

“Close,” Lance said, nudging him with his elbow.

“In draconian, I just say, ‘ _ hrrik rs qekkrc _ ,’” Keith muttered, “That roughly translates into ‘What’s up?’”

“No fancy greetings?”

“I’m not elvish,” the dragon teased back before his face fell and he whispered, “I wish I knew if we did.  I've never had a culture or a heritage.  I've never even had a home.  Sometimes I'm surprised Shiro went to the trouble of teaching me draconian, when common is his first tongue.”

“Is common your first language?”

“Sort of.  I only knew a few words when Shiro took me under his wing,” Keith slid his warm fingers into Lance’s chilled elbow.  “But I picked up draconian much faster than common from there.”

“Thinking about how you grew up is always fascinating to me,” Lance admitted, “It's so different from what I’ve experienced myself.  Elves never let go of the past.  Once something happens, once we feel an emotion, it never goes away.  Sometimes it twists into something else, but happy memories are our strongest medicine.  Too much misery and we perish.  A loneliness like yours must have been… I would've died of a broken heart.”

“Elves are silly,” Keith frowned, “Dying of loneliness and broken hearts.”

Lance sniffed, “I don't intend to ever let mine be broken, thank you.  That's not even my point!”

“Then get to it already!"

“I meant to say that, for you, every day is a new day to make new memories and feel new emotions.  Your past doesn't define you like mine does.  You don't hold on to that loneliness anymore.”

Keith looked up at him, his lips parting slightly.  “I think… I think you’re not exactly right about that.  Dragons and elves… we aren't so different.”

“You think we’re similar?” Lance asked.  “I thought you said dying of a broken heart was  _ silly _ .”

Keith didn't answer; he kissed him instead.

* * *

They both could tell.  Keith’s rut was fading, the last vestiges just fucked right out of him.  The drake shuddered, his lithe body caressed under Lance’s attentive hands, as the very last of it passed him over.

“I think…  I think it might be gone,” Keith said as they both caught their breath.

“You sure?  I could go again,” Lance teased with winded lungs, each breath brushing his chest against Keith’s.

“Yes, I feel fucking exhausted,” the drake yawned, “like my body went through the ringer.  My balls literally ache from making so much cum.  My ass feels like my intestines are gonna drop out I'm so wide open.  Before I was riding this hormone high and I could ignore how fucking shit it feels to have a week-long sex marathon.”

Sexy, Lance thought.  But the kinder portion of his heart wanted to wrap him up, kiss his soft cheeks and hold him close and happy, 

“I can get some water, draw you up a bath?  The heat will relax your muscles at least,” Lance offered, kissing Keith’s sweet cheek.

“No, I’ll be fine on my own.  I just need sleep.  You can head back home, Lance,” At the devastated look on Lance’s face, Keith amended, “Shiro isn't back from Allura’s yet so I’m not gonna go anywhere soon but… you have to head home sometime.”

“Shoving me away so quickly?” Lance tried to joke, but a big, black pit had started forming in his heart as soon as he heard, ‘head back home’.  No joke would fill it; the thought he’d have to leave Keith right now hurt so bad he felt entirely hollow, like his insides had been carved out.

“I've gotta… or you’d just find something as an excuse not to leave,” Keith teased, curling tighter into Lance’s arms, his head nestling just below Lance’s chin.  “You aren't meant to waste your time on dragons.”

“I can waste my time on whatever I want,” Lance retorted, but something in his tone was too sharp.  It told Keith what his words didn't.

Keith leaned up on his elbow to get a better view of him, “Please don’t, Lance.  I’m not meant to  _ be  _ with tiny folk like you.  We’re different species.  You've had your fun so just.  Please.  Let us be.”

Lance swallowed around the lump in his throat, “Is it so bad that I want to remain friends?”

“We aren't built to be friends,” Keith murmured, his hand gently pushing back Lance’s wispy bangs.

“Doesn't mean I don't want to try.  Keith… Kirick… please,” Lance breathed in deep, pressing his mouth into the delicate skin of Keith’s wrists.  "Before you leave then just please, come back home with me?  Thydrica is beautiful.  I want you to see it before you leave."   


“Lance…” Keith sighed.

“Thydrica isn’t even that far away!  It’s just down the river from Dhutyo glacier and it’s--it’s my  _ home _ , Keith, please…  You told me you’ve never had a home before; I want to show you what it’s like,” Lance pleaded.  Something in Keith’s eyes changed, and for a second hope bloomed in Lance’s chest.  He pulled up the corner of his mouth in a half-smile, reaching out to cup Keith’s hand with his own, catch him, keep him close.

Keith pulled his hand away.  Whatever had changed in his mind, it wasn’t what the frostelf had been hoping for.  “Lance, I didn’t want to be blunt with you but now I have to.  You need to let go.  Whatever you’re thinking right now is just leftover pheromones in your head, messing you up.  When you come to your senses, you’ll be glad I told you no.  You know I can't go home with you.  I can't do anything with you.  We need to say goodbye.”

“No, we don't!”  Lance snapped, “It’s not like that!  I’m not brainwashed into this, I genuinely want to be your friend!”

"Why are you so persistent?  I already told you, Lance, no..." Keith sighed.  "Even if I did stay with you, I can't keep this form for that long.  And there would be no point in bringing a dragon home with you, because at best they wouldn’t let me inside and at worst, someone could get hurt.  I’m staying here, where I’m safe."   
  
"If that’s really what you’re worried about, then we could go to Reyulium!  It’s a human city founded by dragon riders," Lance took a deep breath.  "You can’t live the rest of your life hidden away in the north with Shiro, running from mountain to mountain.  You're not an ice drake, Keith, you're a fire drake.  You're meant to be in the south."   
  
"You’re insane, Lance.  Reyulium is a human city..." Keith mumbled, something in his tone just fond enough that Lance wasn’t just going to give up.  In his eyes right now, Lance saw hope, especially as Keith added, "You'd stick out like a sore thumb."   
  
"But they have dragon riders there, Keith, you would be welcome there in any form you wanted," Lance grabbed Keith’s hands again, squeezing, his smile creeping back.  "It doesn't matter whether I'd fit in or not.  You would."

“Lance, you’d just hurt yourself.  Shiro is coming back soon anyway, and I’m leaving here with him.  I know you’re trying to change my mind, but my mind is made up already… you have to go,” Keith shook his head, pulling his hands away and standing up.  He was already transforming back into his dragon form by the time Lance had managed to stumble to his feet.  “You have to go home.  You barely know me.  Trust me, there's nothing in me that makes a good companion.”

Lance stared up into Keith’s gigantic form, still as overwhelming as the first time he saw the dragon, and he felt his shoulders slump.  Why would Keith want him around, really?  No, it did make sense.  Keith was just trying to avoid saying he found Lance annoying now that his rut was over.  He should stop pushing.

“Alright,” Lance sighed, “but I disagree with that last bit.  You just haven’t had enough chances to make a friend to understand why people might be drawn to you.”

“So you’re heading home?” He asked.

“I will if you want me to,” Lance stated, his one last ditch effort.

“I do.  You belong with your family," Keith said.  Lance almost wished he looked cold, or angry, but he just looked too big and too alien to ever be feeling emotions that Lance, small tiny elven Lance, even with his 500 years of experience, could understand.

So.  That was it then.  

Lance picked up his bow, pulled back on his shirt, laced his pants back up tight, and slipped on his boots.  He shot Keith one last glance, memorizing his galaxy eyes, still trying to see something in Keith that didn't mean what he said, that wanted Lance to stay, before Lance had to give up hope.  He couldn't find anything there to make an excuse to stay.  He'd agreed to leave, so Lance did, heading out the way he’d so haphazardly come in five days earlier.  Each step felt like lead, like someone had cast a spell on his legs in order to make each step the hardest he'd ever had to take.  It only got harder the further away he was.

When Lance was finally standing at the cave's exit, his heart pounded, miserable in his chest, as everything inside him told him to turn back, to yell, to do something to make this pain go away.  But Lance was a frostelf, and he would never forget how cold he really felt, despite the warmth of the sun and the brightness of a new day.

Goodbyes hurt.


	5. Part 1: Chapter 5

Lance’s sister, Xiomara, ran a tavern.  She had been a guard and a soldier until she lost her left leg from the knee down.  She attempted to continue her military duties as a stationary sniper and assassin, seeing as she was the best bowman in all of Thydrica, but a close call that made her lose her ear and a good half of the skin on her face finally made her settle down.

Xiomara got her kicks breaking up bar fights now, and she still was the meanest, most no-nonsense woman on the planet.

None of that excluded her from teasing Lance and engaging in epic gossip sessions.  Another reason why she liked her tavern; no better place to keep updated on all the latest news.

Lance sipped at his cider, perched on one of the rickety barstools. He’d been exhausted, hollow inside, and just shiveringly cold every day since he returned, but his sister’s warm presence and her hot spiced drinks could bring back a little color to anyone’s cheeks.  “Xiomara, you lost your leg to a dragon, right?”

She snorted, “It was more of a strategic sacrifice than anything.  Those human dragon riders have no sense of battle skill.  I killed the beast and the rider easily once they thought I was helpless.”

“Right, right, you’re a badass,” Lance rolled his eyes, before asking, quietly and a little hopelessly, “I meant, do you hate dragons now?”

Xiomara looked at him from the corner of her good eye as she poured out a customer a beer.  The foam spilled over as she slid it down the grainy wood of the bar.  “Do you hate an enemy soldier on the battlefield?  Yes.  But do you hate all people just because you fight some of them?  No.  I don't hate dragons, Lance, no more than you hate the deer you hunt.”

“Right,” Lance swallowed another sip of his cider.  Maybe if he told someone, the ache would go away...  Maybe if he turned it all into a joke, it wouldn't hurt.  It was worth a shot just to get it off of his chest.  “So you wouldn't be pissed if I told you I lied to Mom, and really I spent last week in a dragon’s nest?”

Xiomara dropped the beer stein she was filling on the floor with a gasp.  “You _WHAT_?!”

Lance meekly squeaked, “I lied to Mom and had sex with a dragon last week?”

His sister picked up the stein and growled, “Explain.  Now!”

“Ma’am, my  _ ale _ ,” a customer complained, their coin purse clinking on the counter as a reminder.

“I’ll be back, and you better explain!” Xiomara snapped, before turning her tone sugary sweet for her customer, “Of course, my apologies, sir.  Coming right up!”

Lance snickered.  The look his sister shot him could’ve killed a weaker man, and in fact probably had done so.

He gulped down the rest of his cider and tried to collect his thoughts.  He didn't even know if telling her would work.   His sister was a good secret keeper, but he’d still have to watch his words.  If she suspected he was in danger of hurting himself accidentally or that he was already hurt, she’d kill Keith and lock a chastity belt on Lance herself before dead-bolting it to their mother’s heavy cast iron oven that she used for warming wyvern eggs.  Lance could say goodbye to Keith, his asscheeks and his dignity in one fell swoop.

Xiomara returned with a towel, wiping down each counter vigorously.  “Lance.  What were you doing last week?”

“I uh… stumbled into a dragon’s nest?  I needed to find shelter from the blizzard, like I originally said, so I ran into the caves and… into a dragon’s nest,” he said, avoiding her good eye, “Then I might've... had sex with the dragon.  Because he was in rut and he made a really cute human.  I promised him to help him through his rut because being in his nest saved my life.”

“You had sex with a dragon,” Xiomara stated.  “A drake.  A full-grown drake.  Why the hell didn't he just eat you?”

“Because I’m modest, handsome, and very charming?” Lance suggested with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows.

Talking actually did seem to be helping, he thought.  His smile came a little lighter after his secret was out.

“Maybe because you aren't very meaty,” Xiomara wondered.  “Not enough flesh on those bones.  I can see why it’d think you were a better sex toy than lunch.”

“Hey!” Lance protested, pouting, “Keith didn't think of me as a sex toy.  Sexual partner, fuck buddy, friend with benefits, maybe!”

Or maybe he did.  He’d ditched Lance like a dirty rag as soon as his rut ended.

“So a sex toy,” Xiomara snorted.

“I hate you a little bit,” Lance whined, hiding the real hurt under the false pretense.

“Lance, a dragon in rut would fuck literally anything.  You’ve seen mom’s wyverns when they’re in heat or rut.  They’ll fuck anything with enough texture to get their jollies off.  The only difference between wyverns and dragons in a rut is that dragons are supposedly more intelligent, which means their sexual preferences in rut change to anything with a pulse as opposed to wyverns whose discerning tastes include walls and conveniently shaped rocks.”

One of the nagging thoughts that made it all more confusing spring to the forefront of his mind, and he couldn’t stop it from spilling out his lips, “...I had to convince him to fuck me.  He didn't suggest it on his own.”

Xiomara stared at him for a little longer.  “You’re telling me… that  _ you  _ saw some dragon dong and then immediately suggested that dragon fuck you?”

Lance had nothing to say in his defense.

“Little brother, do I have to cut off your manhood with a butcher knife?” Xiomara laughed, “Can you even be trusted with a dick, knowing your libido?!”

He fake-gagged, hamming it up, “Xiomara!  No!  Leave little Lance right where he belongs!”

“Then don't get yourself into these kinds of situations!  And don't lie to Mom anymore.  Or I’ll tell her exactly what you and that drake got down to,” she teased back, but her dark eyes told him that she was very serious about that threat.

“Okay but,” Lance waggled his eyebrows, “Aren’t you curious about exactly what that drake and I got down to?  You don’t even have the details.”

Xiomara stared at him, considering, “Are you going to tell me that he had two dicks like a wyvern?”

“Uh… “ he whistled, “I wasn’t gonna tell you that he didn’t.”

“Spare me, you fiend!  Why do we let you outside again?” She took his cider right from under his nose.  “I’m gonna need this to deal with all of your hot mess.”

“Hey!” He squawked.  “That’s mine!”

“Like you ever pay me for drinks.  This was my cider all along,” Xiomara said, right before she chugged it all down in one go.  Lance never understood how his sister could do that with an alcoholic beverage but, maybe there was some kind of perk for being a full time barkeep and tavern owner.  She slammed down the empty stein and belched, wiping her mouth with the back of her dark blue hand.  Glaring at him, she barked, “Now let me get back to work.  I’ve spent enough time on your crazy ass for the night and I don’t get to go upstairs to sleep for another four hours.”

Lance sighed, sad that his sister wasn't going to let him gush any more.  Even sadder that it didn't work.  Even talking about it, smiling and joking and teasing, hadn't really made it hurt any less.  Maybe his smiles had been lighter for a moment, but now with his sister turning away, the ache returned in full force.

Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes.  He should’ve said something else, done something, done whatever it took to get Keith to at least agree to be friends with him.  The dragon had something to him that made Lance feel far too cold, even in the sweatiest, stuffiest tavern in all of Thyrica.

But he wasn’t left alone to mope for long.  A group of four humans trudged inside, and Lance immediately turned to give them all a long look-over.  It wasn’t every day that a group of humans entered Thydrica, let alone one of its sleazier taverns on the poorer side of town.

They immediately marched up to Lance, their overexcited hunting hound leading them right up to the counter.

One of them took the stool right next to Lance, and the rest took a table nearby, the dog sniffling all around the floor for any scraps that might’ve fallen off the greasy tables.   
  
"You're a local, right?" said the one who’d taken the seat beside him.  He was a short, angry looking man, likely the leader of the pack.  Middle-aged, if Lance had to guess, with a potbelly and a furrowed brow.  His hair and his clothes made him look even more out of place than humans usually were, and the tilt of his eyes wasn't entirely unlike Keith's human form.

Lance swung himself around on the barstool, plastering a fake grin on his face.  "I'm a frostelf!  Of course I'm from Thydrica.  What can I help you with?"   
  
"My brothers, our wives, our children—We’re all travelers, small game hunters, that kind of thing.  We’re especially interested in furs.  We were going to head up into the mountains, but we heard rumors that you still have dragons living freely up there.  Any chance you can give us some inside tips?"   
  
Lance blinked.  Of course this too wasn’t a distraction, just another reminder.  It was like the world set this up just so he couldn’t forget last week, no matter how hard he tried.

Well, he couldn’t make his sister’s tavern look bad in front of customers, and he’d already offered to help.  Lance wasn't too aware of other dragon nests, since they tended to be higher up into the peaks than the game travelled—but he did know one that they definitely should avoid.  One that he too should definitely avoid.

"I guess I can spare the time.  I'm a hunter myself, so I can tell you some tricks of hunting in Dhutyo," Lance offered, "Can I see your map?"   
  
The man pulled out an older map, unrolled the scroll out on the bartop, and held it open with Lance’s empty glass of spiced cider.  "Here you go."   
  
"Okay, so this is the glacier, generally a huge no-go, but right in front of it is pretty popular for game animals," Lance made a mark on the map with his magic, temporarily staining it blue, "But don't climb up out of its path over here," he marked out Keith and Shiro's set of caves.  "There's a lot of caves leading into the mountain, which is a tell tale sign of potential dragon nests.  Falling into one of those would be really bad.”

Had been really bad, for Lance.  Or really good, if he tried to see it in another light.  Keith… Keith wouldn’t appreciate the company of these strangers anymore than he’d appreciated Lance.  And he’d told Lance to leave so quickly…

This wasn’t the time.  He needed to stop thinking about it.

Lance used his magic with a wave of his hand to make the map raise into three dimensions, and continued his explanation, “And in general, don't climb past about here; that's the permanent snow mark.  The stuff never melts, not even in the heat of summer, so only frost elves can safely venture farther, and even not too far then.  That’s where the really nasty stuff lives.  Or nothing at all.  I wouldn’t recommend even trying to go there."   
  
The man stroked his mustache, looking over it all.  "Thanks, this'll help a lot.  You said there was a series of caves here?"

He tapped the first marking Lance had pointed out with his heavy finger.   
  
"Yep.  I got attacked by some kind of flobberwyrm near there.  Real nasty place.  I'd keep very very far away from there," Lance forced an uncomfortable laugh, "Plus like, caves up here almost always hold some kind of monster.  From one hunter to another."   
  
"Can you tell us more?  We'd planned to utilize that area for snowshoe hare—there is an abundance from what another local told us," A girl spoke up from the adjacent table the humans had taken up.  Her hair was long and dark and her mouth almost too small for her face.  She was kind of cute.  

At one point in his life, Lance wouldn’t have stopped himself from attempting to flirt.  But now the ache was there and it hurt too much to think about.  And if he ever did meet Keith again (Lance still held on to some kind of hope.  He didn’t think it would ever truly die), he didn’t want to think about how the drake would react if Lance had tried to kiss every cute girl he’d come across since they split up.   
  
"Well yeah, because there's no big predators," Lance nodded, "The hares... they are too small to catch the attention of a dragon.  Areas like this are dangerous because that's another telling sign of something big and hungry."   
  
A white lie; Lance would never forget that Keith was soft on the bunnies, or that he liked playing with them; his habit of rescuing them from foxes whenever he was out looking for a meal was actually causing them to become something of an environmental issue.  Lance still thought it was cute.  He couldn’t help it.   
  
The Hunter frowned, "So there's definitely a dragon in that area?"   
  
"Unfortunately, I don’t know for sure.  If there was, as long as you stay out of the caves and you tread the edges of its territory, you could still get a lot of rabbits pretty safely," Lance told him.  He was fairly certain Keith and Shiro had no intention of killing tiny folk.  Maybe terrify them out of their skulls, but not kill.   
  
"What kind of dragon could it be, do you know?" The leader asked.

_ The best one, the one I thought I could grow to love― _   
  
Lance shrugged.  "We just have ice drakes up here primarily, but you can never rule out migratory patterns."

The pretty girl spoke up again, her dark eyes eager, "You know a lot.  Do you want to come with us hunting?  This isn't the kind of territory I would want to risk getting lost in."

Lance realized belatedly why she looked so cute to him.  Her face shape and her features reminded him of Keith.  Her hair was too straight, too long to be Keith’s, and her eyes were flat and dark where Keith’s hid all the stars of the night sky.  Her cheekbones were too high, too sharp, and her mouth too small.  But still, on a dark day from a distance, Lance could understand how he might mistake them.

He had it bad when even random strangers reminded him of the fire drake.  He had it so bad that no matter what he thought about, his head looped back around to Keith.  It was like he was broken.

Like something had shattered in him when the drake told him to leave and now all he had left were these shards of broken mirrors that just reflected Keith around his head like a kaleidoscope.   


Lance sighed, "I'm not scheduled to go back out anytime soon—I'm on home stay for the foreseeable future.  My mother is pissed my last hunting trip ended in me sheltered up in the mountains during a blizzard.  And not making it back down for a whole week."   
  
"Ah, shit.  We could've used the guide," A third member of their party, a tall man with a beard who’d been silently listening, spoke up.   
  
"I could've used a vacation from my overbearing family too, but what can you do?" Lance laughed.  "Good luck out there."

Lance figured that’d be the last he’d see of those humans, but the world seemed to like to prove him wrong.   


* * *

His short conversation came back to haunt him when he was in the middle of doing his chores, assigned by his mother for his ‘misbehavior’ the week before.  He still felt guilty that he’d worried her sick, and Lance still had no idea how to let her in on the fact he might’ve accidentally fallen in love with a dragon and had his heart broken in the meantime.

Instead, in the middle of Lance herding the whole flock back inside, the human girl from before approached him, her shoes crunching down the snow with each step.  The sound was so foreign to Lance that it took him no time at all to know exactly who was sneaking up on him.

“You can’t scare an elf,” He let the girl know, turning around to look at her.  “We’ll hear you coming from a mile away.”

“I just wanted to talk,” She countered.  “My name is Ylla.”

“The name’s Lance,” he replied, turning back to his wyvern charges.  “You wanted to talk?”

Instead of answering his question, Ylla said, “Your mother raises fine wyverns.  How many does she keep in a flock?”

“About twenty,” Lance patted the back of one horse sized beast, the feeling of scales under his fingers somehow more intimately associated with another type of being altogether, no matter what Lance had actually grown up with.  “One queen per generation, three generations per flock.  Ours are fairly tame, but I don't suggest touching them if you like to keep your fingers attached.  They bite.”

Ylla, the girl who looked so much like Keith, reached out just a little, just for the wyvern to snap at her hand and growl.  She laughed good-naturedly at their natural aggression, and asked,  “Do you ever sell any?  Wyvern leather is almost as hard as steel, and their bones are useful for all kinds of alchemy.”

“Some, yeah,” Lance found an older wyvern to show off, and called her closer with a whistle.  “This is Kaltenecker.  She’d an old lady, almost 25.  She’s probably going to be sold soon to a butcher.  We have a neighbor who we’ve worked with for years, and they know how to put down our wyverns painlessly when their time comes.  They give us a good price, and find a way to make use out of every bit of a wyvern.”

“Only when they’re old?” Ylla asked.

“Why would you waste a life by killing them before they truly live?” Lance shook his head, “It’s not like they just eat and shit their whole lives uselessly before we sell them, if you’re thinking from a cold-hearted business model either.  The younger girls lay eggs, which we sell off or eat ourselves, and the males make for good pack labor, so you’ll see them around town too.  I used to ride on them when I was a kid, but they don't fly like dragons.  One human is enough to keep them grounded.”

Ylla crossed her arms pensively, one bare hand coming up to touch her frost-reddened chin, “I always wondered why the riders in Reyulium would choose dragons as their steeds.  Wyverns are much easier to tame.  But I guess you answered my question.”

“I don't understand how anyone could tame a dragon,” Lance shook his head, “They’re fully cognizant beings, just like us, and all the other races.”

“Are you sure about that?  It's just what they want you to think,” Ylla said, briefly offering him her hand.  it was bare and her knuckles were reddened from the cold.  “I came here to confirm my suspicions from our first meeting.  We’re definitely going to want you with us on our expedition.  Think on it.  Okay, Lance?”

She waved and turned away, heading back towards the cave’s entrance.   Lance almost reminded her that he was still forbidden from leaving Thydrica, on his mother’s orders, but she seemed to vanish before his eyes.  She must’ve been a mage, or otherwise skilled in magic.  To be that good as a human, she’d have to be.

Not that it mattered how skilled she was.  Her life would be a blip on the radar, gone before he could blink.  Just like the week he’d spent with Keith would be, if he just closed his eyes and forgot.

He didn't know why a fraction of a second of his life had suddenly come to take over all of it, but there was a cold, empty longing that was devouring him slowly, and Lance knew that if he continued letting that sadness spread, his body would rot from that sickness until he died from it.  

And Lance was determined not to die over—over what, a paltry crush?  A whimsy?  He was not going to die over being heartbroken!

But still, that sadness continued to eat away at him.

* * *

Lance spent the next night out on the boats with his older cousin, which was as close as he could get to leaving the city.  The icy sea that their mountain range raised itself out of was frozen completely over, sealing off almost all their trade routes.  Montez and he were going to break out the docks, and create little buoy lanterns to provide heat enough to cross the sea and make landfall down south by the little human village of Syhtham.

_ And then straight back, _ his mother had scowled at him, tugging on his ears hard.   _ I don’t want you wandering off and leaving us for dead again. _

Lance had never helped Montez with this particular task before, but everyone in his family could tell his skin was unhealthily grey and his smiles didn't meet his eyes.  Heartsick, his mother whispered when she thought he wasn't listening.  Xiomara hadn't reacted with the same kind of panic as his mother, and she didn't let Antonio and Tajo, Lance’s two older brothers, start to panic either.  Instead, she had insisted that they all cure him by keeping him too busy to remember his sadness.  This was the first of a set of weird tasks Lance had had assigned to him.

At least this one allowed him to breathe in the beautiful fresh air of the dark night sky, even as the frozen fog rolled in and chilled them so thoroughly it was like Lance was still up on the mountain.

“So how do we even make these lanterns again?” Lance asked, crossing his arms over the bow of the boat.

Montez laughed, “I won't get into the nitty gritty details.  But basically you need something to spark an everfire inside this container, and you toss the whole affair into the water before it burns a hole through our boat and sinks us.”

“Alright,” Lance came over to examine the premade buoys; glass containers on top with a metal bottom, and underneath was something rubbery that Lance assumed made them float.  “What do we have to spark an everfire?  I know neither of us are fire mages.”

His cousin pulled out a heavy bag of what looked like painted river rocks, and he pulled one out to show off.  “The first fire magic came from dragons, so the strongest everfires are made from dragon scales.  Just light this scale on fire and it’ll burn forever without needing fuel.”

Lance hesitantly held the dull red scale, his heart thudding in his chest.  “Where’d you get these?”

“When dragons shed their skin, collectors grab these.  Or so they say when they sell them.  You know those monsters at Yrent would butcher anything if it meant a higher price.”

Lance almost chucked the thing out into the ocean after hearing that, his grip on the bow tightening so hard that his fingers creaked from the strain.  “Humans murder dragons for their scales?”

“Sometimes,” Montez admitted, “But I can confirm these ones aren't like that.  The lack of luster means these scales were shed naturally.  If you see a shiny scale, that's when it's suspicious.  I always know which traders to trust. These scales are from Reyulium, leftover from their bonded dragons’ yearly shed.  I always ask.”

Lance took a deep breath. “I've never even considered this kind of stuff.”

“It's alright,” Montez ruffled his hair, “You don't spend much time with humans.  You’re too young.  I always forget you’re barely a man.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Lance squawked, “I’m a respectable 493!”

“As opposed to my 784 years of experience?” Montez waggled his eyebrows.  “You’re the baby of our family.”

“Asshole,” Lance sulked, but a hint of cheer restored itself to his chest nonetheless.  It was a good feeling to know he wasn't alone.  That his family was still here to tease and heckle him.

He held the dull red scale in his palm, and it was weird to think of it like something small and delicate when he’d seen scales three times this big up close and personal just a week ago.  The lack of oil and the roughness out the outside was so different from Keith’s beautiful hide.

“So you just light this on fire and put it in the buoy?” Lance asked.

“That's the idea.  Give me that one and I’ll show you.”

Lance handed it over.   Montez stuck it inside the buoy, and then quickly tossed a lit match in afterwards.   The fire sparked up with a roar of flames, and it took both of them to haul the flaming piece of metal off their boat and onto the ice.

“Just give it a second,” his cousin reassured, as the buoy melted through the ice to bob in the water below.

Before Lance could really understand it, the buoy had melted the ice surrounding it as well, and Montez could navigate their boat forwards into the cracks in the ice.   Just like in Keith’s nest, the fire sparked lines of oranges and pinks and reds through cracks and reflected so far that it felt like it lit up the whole night sky like the sun.

“I didn't use to think fire was beautiful,” Lance sighed, his face slumping on his palm, “but I can see it now.”

“It's not the fire, little cousin,” Montez laughed, “It’s how it works together.  Fire and ice.  It's the marriage of the two that creates the most beautiful things we see on this planet.  If all was ever just ice or just fire, then the world would be a lonely place.”

The world was a lonely place, Lance thought, the chill returning to his bones even as the nearby fire brought him warmth that curled around every limb.  The world was all ice, and it wasn't until Lance had known differently that he’d even realized it.

His cousin took a seat next to him, his hand settling on Lance’s shoulder.  “I don't know who it was you met while you were away, but I know what a longing for love looks like in every sad heartsick little elf.  They were your fire, weren't they?”

Lance felt his breath stutter in his throat, the sadness he hadn't allowed himself to feel surging over him like a bore tide while he was stuck in the glacial silt.  It drowned him in ice, and tears shook from his eyes, his whole body shivering.  

“I’m so scared, Montie,” he cried, his cousin wrapped him up tight in his arms.  “I don't want to die.  I don't want to hurt anymore, I just want to turn off my feelings and pretend it never happened—!”

“Shh,” Montez rocked him back and forth, petting Lance’s short strands of hair.  “I know.  I know better than anyone.”

Montez had been heartsick before.  Lance remembered that now.

“Elves think we can't let go.  But that's not true.  It's the letting go that kills us,” Montez whispered, holding Lance tightly as the young elf cried.  “Don't let go, Lance.  Find them, wherever they are, and cling to life.  Yours is a story that isn't meant to be sad.”

“I can't go back and find him, he—he told me we couldn't even be friends,” Lance choked, “He doesn't have any feelings for me.”

“Is the Lance I know a quitter?  Who was told being a hunter was such a dangerous job that you might die from merely trying to scale the cliffs, and immediately signed up for it?  Who was told that no elf maiden would ever love some lowbrow elf who smelled like wyvern shit and immediately fired back that it was a good thing he wasn't so restricted by race and gender as they?”

“...me?” He sniffled into Montez’s thick winter coat.

“And who was our best student in magic in the whole family?  Who could make feathers out of ice instantly for his arrows when the rest of us can barely use our magic to twirl a spoon?  Whose smile can light up our whole day; whose humor makes us all laugh even in the darkest times?”

“It doesn't feel like it’s me who did any of that,” Lance mumbled.  “It feels like someone else did.  I don't know who I was back then but I’m not that person now.”

Montez stroked Lance’s hair gently.  “And that's perfectly fine.  There were some days I felt I couldn't even smile.  I couldn't remember how I had ever done it.  But that ability comes back.  Look out, Lance, at that buoy.  I remember the spark in your eyes when you learned that it was a dragon’s everfire that stays alight within.”

The very brief moment of warmth, yes.  Lance remembered it, but even something from a few minutes ago seemed so far away.

“That's the curse of our house,” Montez continued, “That we give away our hearts far too easily.  You most of all, Lancey.  But I can tell that your fire is like that dragon scale.  He is your everfire.  And if you don't let go, you will find yourself getting as many second chances as you need.”

“Mama won't let me go to try and find him,” Lance mumbled, “It doesn't matter.  I'm so stupid, feeling so broken like this after only knowing someone a week.”

“I had only known Isabél for two days before I knew she would have my heart forever.  I was just blessed with the luck she felt the same.  That's the thing about elves; we know immediately who the stars have destined for us,” his cousin hummed.

“Now you’re talking crazy talk!” Lance sniffed, wiping away his tears.  “I'm just a drama queen, I don't have a legitimate reason to be heartsick.”

“Your feelings are legitimate," he rebuked, "Which is why I promise I’m going to help you find him again, even with Auntie Celia breathing down your neck.”

“You shouldn't do anything that would get you in trouble,” Lance scoffed, bitterness seeping into his veins.  “Not for something so stupid.”

“Your feelings aren't stupid, Lance,” Montez smiled mischievously, “Plus, you’re old enough to make your own way in this world.  You don't need your mother suddenly treating you like a child again.”

“I… I guess,” Lance smiled back, trying to make it reach his eyes.  “I… I feel like a child though.  Succumbing so easily to my own emotions.”

“Loving someone else doesn’t make you weak, Lance,” Montie winked.  “It makes you the strongest person in this world.  What you need right now is hope.  And I promise you, it’s there.  I’ll make sure your mother lets you go find him.  No one understands heartsickness like I do.  She’ll listen to me.”

Something in Lance stayed warm at that thought.

* * *

Montie had come through.  Which is exactly why Lance could swagger up into his sister's tavern,  right up to the table of hunters, and slap his hand down.  “I’ll be your guide in the mountains.  I reconsidered your offer and I want 1/16th of the pelts and no questions asked if I come and go at night.  Fair?”

The leader’s dark eyes gleamed in the low light, “You have yourself a deal, frostelf.  My name is Uthyr and these are my children, Ylla and Tomás.”

Lance nodded at them both.  He'd already been introduced to Ylla, and she waved her fingers at him in recognition.  Tomás on the other hand held out his palm for a shake, and Lance could tell his grip was firm as they shook.  Strong fingers, a sword fighter maybe?  Maybe a spearman, since he was primarily a hunter.

Uthyr nodded to an older pair of men, lounging close to one another, “And this is Regris and Gregar.  My cousin and his lover.”

Lance had briefly spoken to Regris the first time they’d met, his distinctive beard long and bushy.  With Keith, he’d once joked that all elves were hairy, but he didn’t know of any frostelf with a beard nearly that magnificent.  His own father had a patchy scruff of a beard, and Lance grew some soft yet scratchy stubble if he really tried, but no elf had anything quite like that long braided black beard.

Ylla came over and touched his arm, holding it at the elbow, her smile growing even more confident as she said proudly, “Welcome to the team, Lance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested, here's a little sketch of Xiomara when I was designing her character: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/302382894004043777/393502170848297001/xiomara.jpg
> 
> And soon I'll post a world map too. Sorry there's no Keith in this chapter! Just a lot of Lance pining after Keith ;) but there will be Keith next chapter, I promise.


	6. Part 1: Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I just realized this chapter was missing a very important section, and have added it back in where it belongs.

“Up over here,” Lance directed, offering Ylla his hand to get the short girl out of the snowbank.

“Is your entire mountain so damned cold?” She shivered, huddling close to him for warmth.

“Unfortunately,” Lance laughed, “But all elves are light footed on snow, and even more so if we’re frostelves.  I’ll make sure to pull you out of any more snow-banks.”

She huffed, crossing her arms.

It had only been a day’s trip so far, and already Lance could see the humans were worse for wear.  The cold was getting to them, and even Ylla’s little magic lanterns could barely warm their gloved palms in the sunlight.

“I’ll build us some shelter tonight,” Lance promised them, “You would think an ice tent would be chilly but it will trap in the heat.  Even better if it’s a little underground too—we could take a look into one of the tunnels or caves, block off the entrance, and keep very toasty that way.”

“I thought you said it be too dangerous,” Tomás frowned.  “That there might be flobberwyrms or other beasts?”

“Well, there could be, but I can kill a flobberwyrm,” Lance said.  He probably was boasting a little, but to him these humans had lived the life length of infants.  He had trained with his bow for 7 or 8 generations of their family heritage, perhaps more.  To have them treat him like an equal felt unsettling, at best.

“Could you kill a dragon?” Uthyr laughed, trudging along behind his children with a cheerful grin.

“If we run across a dragon, that's all we better try doing,” Lance grinned, cheekily.  “ _ Run. _ ”

Uthyr guffawed, slapping Regris on the back in good humor.  “You’re a funny kid, Lance of the frostelves.”

Lance let the remark slide off his back, the giddy knowledge that he had every intention of finding Keith again and doing anything but running from the huge dragon in the forefront of his mind.

“What about a behemoth?” Gregar said in his most foreboding, melodramatic tone.  “Sleeping in the dark for a millennia, waiting for the overly friendly hunters to wake it from its sleep?!”

Regris added to the teasing, “Oh!  Death on a thousand wings, the ancestor of all dragons shall awaken!”

Ylla shrieked, jumping to hold onto Lance’s arm like a vice.  “Don't mess around like that!  No one’s ever seen a behemoth, they’re not real!”

“Even if they were, there’s none in these mountains,” Lance added, “Geographically speaking, the Dhutyo glacier would've formed after the time spoken of in the legends of their resting, and sliced open over the years any of their lairs for us to see.  So, no massive, many-winged dragon ancestors here.”

Ylla smiled thankfully up at him.  “You can't think they’re real, though?”

Lance pretended to think about it, before his voice took on Gregar’s dramatic tone, “Once in Thydrica there lived this old hunter.  He was born so long ago, he met the first elves in person; the ones who walked under starlight before the sun and moon were crafted by the gods and hung in the sky.  My mother met him when she was just a little girl, and he told her of the folly of the ancient dwarves.  

“The dwarves dug deep into their own mountain, so deep that they came across a cavern which held a monster sleeping for so many years that the hammering of the dwarves’ hammers had slowly woken it from its rest.  The monster scorched the rest of the mountain into nothing but molten rock, flattening the whole mountain into a hill, one that lays thin over its slumbering body.  The old elf saw it all happen—he said the last thing those ancient dwarves ever saw was the flick of a behemoth’s tail and the flames of its unending fury.”

Ylla shuddered, “No way.  That old elf had gone senile or something.”

“It could be just a tall tale, but elves believe in them,” Lance told her, “because so many of our elders tell the same stories of death and dragon’s fire.”

Uthyr added, “But there’s not going to be anything like that here.  It's all snow hares and richness once the week is out.”

“Ode to that,” Regris laughed.

* * *

Lance yawned, making a tent out of ice.  Since they were well below the permanent snow line and out of the way of the glacier, with a warm evening ahead, this kind of delicate shelter would serve them decently enough, especially since they were all well bundled in their fur coats and thick parkas.  Even Lance, who had forgone the type of light clothes he usually liked to go hunting in, prioritizing warmth over mobility.  It wasn't like escorting a huge group of humans was quick, anyway, so this method was safer.

Ylla tucked herself into her bedroll, having already pouted her way into getting last watch.  She evidently decided it was better to wake up early than go to sleep late.

Lance on the other hand wanted first watch, so he could spend the night searching for Keith’s cave away from any potential tagalongs.  And elves tended to need far less sleep than humans, besides.

However, he didn't exactly have a good argument for why he should get first watch. Uthyr was insisting he get the midnight shift, on the premise that elven eyes could see better in the dark.  And while that wasn't exactly true, elven eyes generally saw better than humans in any condition.  His eyes were always better than any of these humans, no matter the time of day.

“I need my beauty sleep to be uninterrupted,” Lance attempted to bargain, “And besides, I see much better in twilight than in the dark.”

“But we see nothing in the dark at all,” whined Tomás, who clearly wanted first watch.

“But I made the tent!” Lance protested, “Shouldn't I get first pick of the watch?”

Regris, ever his ally, commented, “Our guide should be fully rested, it's true…”

“And Ylla clearly already had first pick, seeing as she’s snoring away already!” Chimed in Tomás, who couldn't let anyone take Lance's side for a minute.

Uthyr laughed, “What spoiled children I have.  Elf friend, take first watch if you desire it so.  I’ll take second, and Tomás for all his whining can have midnight watch.  Gregar, I’ll leave witching hour to you, and Regris can go after.  Sound fair enough?”

“I still think the elf should have midnight watch,” Tomás sulked, his big arms crossing over his chest.  Warrior types like him always seemed ready to pick a fight, but Lance knew he could nail the man in-between the eyes with an arrow before he’d so much as drawn his sword.  It just sucked to know that violence wasn't always going to be the answer, with a group of humans like these.

However, he got the shift he wanted.  Soon he could sneak off to see Keith.  The other nigh immortal being would understand his frustration with so many humans, at the very least, and hopefully, Lance’s heart sung, he would also understand his feelings–and not reject them again.  

The shift was quiet, however, and his hunt for Keith beyond that was even less fruitful.  Just Lance, and the dark of the night sky.

* * *

It had been a quiet first day of rabbit hunting.  Lance had tried to warn the hunters that bringing along too many supplies would just weigh them down, but they all had some kind of armor, even Ylla, who probably could’ve stood to wear another coat instead of cold metal.

But apparently their conversation the day before scared all of them into thinking flobberwyrms and behemoths were right around the corner, and he couldn’t convince a single one to leave their heavy equipment behind.  Lance sighed, and resigned himself to an unfruitful day of their clanking scaring away all the good catches.

He scouted on ahead of the group, enjoying walking on top of the snow as his companions sunk down to their knees in it.  In fact, their weight was almost a little worrying.  There were a lot of little caves in this area, just like the one he’d snuck into with Keith, and he knew the cavern had many ‘skylights’ where only thin ice kept someone from falling down into a pit.  They had kept Keith’s caves well lit, but they now made Lance fret over the thought of the heavy armor on Uthyr or one of the other men being enough to crack that ice and send them crashing into hard rock.

That’s partially why he was keeping his distance from them; if Lance went on ahead, he could call out those spots as he saw them.

“There’s no rabbits,” Tomás complained, although he was one of the worst of them.  He’d even brought a shield.

“You’re scaring them all off because you sound like a whole marching army,” Lance muttered under his breath, watching in the distance as another white rabbit scampered down its hole and away from the racket.

Ylla snickered, smacking her brother on his arm, “Maybe you shouldn’t’ve made fun of me for being scared when you are too chicken to go hunting without your armor!”

See?  She got it.

Tomás didn’t.  “Being safe is better than sorry.”

“Being rich is better than safe,” Gregar added, waggling his eyebrows.  “What’s life without a little adventure?”

So he said, but he was wearing a chest plate and a sword as well, Lance thought to himself.  Rolling his eyes, Lance offered, “I’ll go on ahead a ways and show you losers how it’s done.  You’re all making far too much noise.”

Uthyr nodded.  “Might be best if you do, elf.”

Lance was growing to like the older man.  He had this smooth cadence to his voice, that made him seem like he was respectful of Lance’s seniority, despite looking much younger.  At the very least, he wasn’t as full of himself as his uproarious family.

The elf took him up on his offer and sprinted ahead, just far enough that he could still see the group shuffling along, but far enough that a rabbit’s ears wouldn’t pick up their footfalls.  Lance liked the freedom of hunting alone, and had always accepted the challenges it came with.

Even though his mother despised the thought of him climbing sheer cliffs of ice and braving the unknown mountains, he loved it.  Nature and the high icy chill of the peaks had always called to him, like a home away from home.  Someday he wanted to explore, see more of the world, and enjoy the wonders of a beach where someone could dip their feet in the water, or a hill full of sun-ripened foreign fruits he had only tasted preserved in jars.

Most of all, he wanted to go to those places with Keith, to see the dragon somewhere that allowed his scales to shine in the dust and his fire flourish, instead of up here where the cold tempered him into a dull shine.

Still, he was letting his romantic heart get ahead of him.  He’d had no luck finding Keith last night, and he didn’t want to get his hopes up for tonight either.  He couldn’t remember the exact path to the entrance to those caves, not when there had been so much panic and he’d never meant to find them in the first place.

Today was not for daydreaming, though.  He had some humans to show up.

Lance climbed up a snow back, allowing his light cloak to hide his blue skin and dark hair from view, and he waited, the beat of his heart the only part of him that thumped.  He was the silent hunter in the dark.

A heartbeat passed, the sound of tiny feet indenting the snow.

He drew his bow, silently manifesting an arrow out of ice, fitted perfectly for his grip.  The moment stopped, the whole world silent, until finally, it was time.

Lance let the arrow fly.

He never missed his mark.

Jumping up, Lance retrieved his kill, an arrow straight through the poor thing’s heart.  It hadn’t even made a sound, it’s death so swift that there would’ve been no pain.  He gave it a moment of silence, before securing the body to his belt, and moving on.  Snuggleberry would make a nice dinner and an even nicer fur coat, and Lance knew that the best way to honor a kill was to make use of every bit of something.  No matter how these hunters usually did things, Lance wouldn’t let them disgrace his homeland and the creatures that lived here.

It was on his way back to the group that he heard the commotion flare up.  A shout, the sound of ice breaking, and then a flurry of footsteps stomping.  Lance ran the rest of the way, rejoining them only to find Tomás sunk one leg and up to his torso into a hole in thin, cracked ice, dangling above a cavern below.

"Tomás!" Ylla tugged at her brother’s arm, trying to pull him upwards.  The harder she tugged, the more the ice creaked and threatened to shatter altogether, sending them all down below tumbling at least thirty to forty feet into the darkness.

“Stop tugging!  You’re making it worse!” Lance demanded, ice magic at his fingertips as he reinforced the ice they were standing on.  It wouldn’t help Tomás much, but at least it kept them all from the ground crumbling beneath their feet.

Ylla looked Lance dead in the eye, something dark in her pupils, as she tugged him harder, the most forceful attempt yet.

The ice shattered with the pressure, and it was all they could do to watch the warrior grasp desperately at the ice as he slipped down into one of the caves, the darkness swallowing him.

For a moment, no one moved, the shock of how sudden he just seemed to vanish stunning them all.  It was Lance who snapped out of it first.  
  
"Shit!" Lance dove down after him, hastily making a lasso out of ice to lighten his fall.  He knew a healing spell if he needed to, but he didn’t know if he could heal a broken bone or something worse.

As soon as his eyes adjusted to the dark, Lance spotted Tomás nearby, evidently having landed on his feet like an agile cat.

Tomás brushed off his armor from the speckles of snow, seeming no worse for wear.  "L-Lance?"  
  
"We thought you were a goner!" Lance laughed, relieved.  He offered out the rope; the only reason it wasn’t stiffening up like regular ice was that he was still actively manipulating it with his magic.  He couldn’t keep it up for long.  "If you tie this around your waist, I can tug us both back up before anything crawls out to find us."  
  
"Good plan, Lance," Tomás reached out for the rope, taking it in hand.

These caves looked familiar the longer Lance stood in them, and a sinking feeling of urgency had the elf’s hackles raised.  Lance glanced nervously behind him.  

When he’d intended to sneak into the caves while the rest of the party was asleep, he had planned to go alone.  He didn't know how Keith would react to other tiny folk in his territory now that his rut was over.  Ruts made dragons more aggressive to each other, but not necessarily to creatures they didn't see as threats.  Meaning Keith could be extra pissed that Lance had unwittingly brought him a guest, especially since Lance himself was already an unexpected and potentially unwanted guest.

Luckily for now, it was quiet.  Lance just had to pray that Keith didn't come running to investigate or something.  He wanted their next meeting to be done right, where Lance didn't have to mince his words in front of these hunters who were practically strangers.

He hadn’t found these caves the first night he’d looked, but now that he’d found them, he should have no problems talking to Keith tonight.

Tomás glanced up at the rope.  “You sure this will hold?”

“It's solid ice,” Lance snapped, affronted, “You’re seriously questioning a frostelf on their ice magic?”

“If it's really ice, I’ll just slip right back down,” Tomás looked at it, before testing his grip on it.

“I’ll make a ladder, then!” Lance growled, pushing Tomás aside with a frustrated sigh, summoning the icy chill in his core and whipping up another rope of ice, stringing connections between the two.  Fussy humans, stupid logic.

Lance could climb a rope of ice no problem.  He hated having to make something so tedious as a ladder; it was much harder to do and he was feeling his magic running dry after using it for so long on the rope in the first place.  He sighed, deep and tired, and went about making the whole thirty something foot tall ladder.

In his concentration, he didn't notice at first that Tomás had stolen his scarf right off of where it stuck out of his pack.  The hunter dangled the fabric before his lips, whistling so high pitched that Lance’s ears barely caught the noise, and as he turned around to tell Tomás to cut the shit, he heard the sound of wings.

A loud thud in the dark, the ground beneath them shaking.

Only a dragon could make the ground shake like that.  Whatever Tomás thought he was doing as a joke, the asshole had attracted the attention of something much bigger than Lance had ever wanted.  

Part of Lance was begging that it was Shiro, because at least then the dragon wouldn't try to make pleasant, but another part of him, hidden deep, wanted nothing more than to see Keith again, no matter the circumstances.  But if Lance had to reveal his tragic love story with a dragon in front of this knucklehead, Lance was going to freeze Tomas’ nuts off.

"Lance?" He heard the dragon say in Keith’s soft growl.  So. It really was Keith.  His heart did somersaults and his soul hurt.

Keith was cautious—approaching at his full size, dwarfing them as he tentatively took a step forward.

He was as beautiful as ever, all sleek red with purple accents, and his tiered wings shifted just so on his back that Lance could see how the thin opalescent skin glimmered in the low light.  His body held this kind of majesty as he approached, long powerful legs holding up a beast so large that anyone unprepared would have a moment of speechlessness.  And of course, Keith’s eyes.  Every star in the galaxy was trapped inside them, shining bright as they tried to escape.

Lance hadn't felt this alive in weeks.

There was a hushed moment, before Lance could open his mouth and explain, to get Keith to understand that this was an accident, that he was so happy to see him again, that he hadn’t felt right since they parted--

"Dragon!" Tomás yelled, pulling out his greatsword.

What?  No, why was he yelling?

"Wait, Tomás!" Lance shoved him back, "Grab the ladder, you can still leave that way—!"

"Lance?” Keith asked, his wings flapping in irritated confusion.

“You have to get out of here!” Lance yelled, not even sure who he was talking to anymore.  Keith needed to leave this cave before Tomás was scared into actually using his sword and Tomás needed to put that sword the fuck away because otherwise everyone would be getting hurt.

Keith snarled, his throat glowing purple, "What's going on?!"

“DRAGON!” Tomás yelled again, banging his sword on his shield.

The rest of the hunting party dropped down through the cave’s new skylight, weapons drawn.  They landed like they were used to it, their descent slowed to an easy landing by one of Ylla’s quick spells.    
"Oh, this one is a big beauty!" Gregar chuckled, loading his crossbow with a gleam in his eye.  
  
"No, what're you doing?  I told you all to stay out of the caves!" Lance panicked, "He won't fight you if you all just leave—R-right, Keith?"

Keith didn’t respond, his body tense as he took a step back.

“We’d never leave you here alone with a dragon!” Ylla laughed, her voice saccharine sweet.  “Don’t worry, no one’s getting hurt today!”

Keith’s response was a roar, the deep and guttural kind that shook the ice around them and sent tremors through the floor.  The drake had never looked more menacing, the tensed muscles in his body promising swift death.  The look in his slitted eyes even more so.  With slow creeping horror, Lance watched as Keith's neck and chest glowed a blinding purple, before a giant stream of liquid fire erupted from his throat.

 

  


"No!" Lance screamed, casting an ice barrier between them and Keith's fire.  It melted under his flames, and Lance had to make it over, and over, and over again just to keep the group of hunters safe.  Maybe they were acting crazy right now but he still wasn't just going to let Keith kill them!  
   
Keith's fire cut off just as soon as Lance moved between him and the hunters, his eyes wide and confused.  He almost looked hurt, and Lance tried his best not to feel guilty for his choice.

Lance took a deep breath, trying to find the last shreds of his magic as he pulled up the ice around Keith’s legs, trapping him temporarily in what hopefully would distract the drake long enough for him to convince these stupid hunters that they needed to be _running_ , not trying to fight a dragon, for fuck’s sake.

Just as he’d secured Keith, a twang sounded much too loudly.  

A crossbow bolt burrowed its deadly way into the softer scales by Keith's throat, followed by another and another; all three hunters firing at once.

“Thanks for holding him steady, elf,” Uthyr remarked, reloading his crossbow like he was insane enough to want to try hurting Keith _again_.  Like Keith wasn’t the same beautiful creature that had called out his name, so soft and cautious earlier.  Like Keith was just an animal.

Lance cried out, like it has been his neck punctured instead.  He whipped around to face the hunters, desperate.

"Stop!" Lance begged, turning to Gregar, "I know him, okay?  I know the drake so you can still all get out safely if you just run!  Are you all stupid?!  You can’t fight a dragon!”  
  
Tomás snorted, his crossbow finally reloaded.  "You're stupid, elf.  We had you guide us here so we'd find this very dragon."  
  
"You want to hurt Keith?" He trembled, backing up and away from the hunters.  Keith roared again, breaking one leg free enough as he lunged forward, shaking the whole mountain with his anger.  Lance backed up slowly, until he stood by Keith’s side, partially shielded by his giant head.

"Like any real hunter would actually want rabbits from Dhutyo valley enough to wait two weeks for them," Ylla mocked, her once pretty face morphed in a mad expression of glee.  "Now get out of our way!"

Lance stood his ground, arms spread out wide, “No!”

He needed to find more strength in him, he needed to cast a spell, to do something, but he felt empty, his arms shaking.  Keith, but the hunters, but _Keith_ \-- he was so hurt, so angry, so dumb, so fucking stupid--

Why wasn’t Keith trying to kill them?  Why wouldn’t he use his flames?

“I’m casting this spell regardless of whether you’re in my way or not!” Ylla smirked, her staff gathering a bolt—sick and green—growing great in size.  That bolt was growing large enough to kill him, large enough to hurt Keith.

“I’m not moving!” Lance screamed.

“Move!”

“No!”

"Lance!" Keith roared, shattering the rest of the ice as he dove in front of him.  The mage’s blast collided with his hide in an explosion of sickly green and a spray of blood and scales.  Lance couldn’t even see entirely how bad it was, but he saw enough.  That amount of poison and acid would’ve killed him, and it was enough to eat away enough flesh that the white of Keith’s shoulder bone briefly flashed.  Lance sobbed, watching the acid eat away at his scales.

He tried to cast another ice barrier, but his ice didn't listen; his emotions were too wild for him to focus and he had so little left in him, his whole body empty, and tears streamed down his cheeks as he couldn't keep his eyes off of the acid still boiling down into Keith’s exposed muscles.

Healing, he had to know some kind of healing spell, he knew he knew some.  He tried to remember something, anything, but instead his brain just seemed empty.

Keith struggled to stand, his body pulling up and then collapsing with a sound so loud the elves likely heard it back in Thydrica.  The crimson drake roared again, a pained desperate sound, and Lance backed away, afraid of the acid still dripping off his scales.

He needed to do something, he needed to help, he needed to--

His arms didn’t listen, caught, and Lance turned just to see Regris behind him, restraining him.  Lance hissed, “Let me go, you monster!  How dare you?!”

Regris grinned, wrapping chains around Lance’s arms, keeping him from even attempting any magic.  “We can’t have you going against us, elf.  Did you see that ice barrier you created earlier?  Insane.”

“How dare you?!  I protected you and you go and do this?!” Lance tried to kick out, but the rogue just tossed him to the ground, wrapping his legs next.

Chained up and helpless, Lance could do nothing but watch as the fight resumed.  Keith had made it back up on his feet, his fire back in his throat again.

A jet of flames so scorching that Lance felt his metal chains burn him from proximity blasted through the group of hunters, but their armor was spelled to repel it like it was nothing.

Lance hated himself for not seeing the signs.  For ignoring something so obvious.

Fire rendered useless, Keith battered his wings, shredding the air in gusts that whipped the cave into such an intense cold that Lance could hardly believe he was burning earlier.  The hunters screamed, huddling together against the wind.

No one could hear anything, not over the sound of wind and the cavern shattering around them.  Three sets of wings could create a gale so intense that it was breaking the mountain itself.  Keith’s blood splattered with it, his exposed shoulder bone and melted muscle screaming along with them.

It was the most terrifying scene Lance had ever seen.

For a moment, it felt like it would last forever and this stalemate would never break.  That was, until Uthyr pulled his hunting spear out from where it had been attached to his pack.  Regris tied a chain to the handle, and Gregar assembled the same contraption on his own.

"Keith!" Lance screamed as the hunters shot the drake’s wings through with spears, anchoring him to the ground.  Ylla placed her hands, sparking with lightning, on the spears.  Electricity shot up each chain, and Lance could only stare as Keith roared one last time, his blood boiling with the painful, unending shock, as he sunk to the ground once again, exhausted.

The fallen dragon on the ground, his head collapsed near Lance himself was chained up, the dragon blearly glared at him, with glassy eyes.  
  
"Stay away, Lance," Keith snarled softly, eyes drifting closed, "Don't ever come back to these caves...  Leave me..."  
  
"No, Keith!" Lance struggled weakly against the chains.  It didn’t help; without his arms he couldn’t cast magic, and without his legs, he couldn’t do so much as stand.  All he could do was wiggle like a worm.

He would’ve given anything if he could only escape and help, somehow.

Keith was electrocuted again, Ylla’s maniacal eyes shining as she shouted in victory.  This time he fell unconscious, his beautiful purple eyes growing dark and his eyelids jerking wide before slamming shut as his body was wracked with tremors.  
  
"Keith!" Lance screamed.

Dragon unconscious, the hunters approached.

“Time to shrink him, don’t you think?” Tomás remarked.  “He’s fucking _massive_.”

Ylla nodded, calling up her magic once again, purple and sick glowing around Keith as she shrunk him down into his human form, until a pale pretty broken doll lay on the floor and not a dragon.

Blood oozed from his shoulder, where he’d taken the blow for Lance, and the white of his shoulder blade and femur glinted in the light.  It would’ve melted Lance whole, but something in the elf felt like he would’ve preferred that to seeing this.  His gut instinct told him that if Keith hadn’t taken that hit to protect Lance, he wouldn’t have lost so badly.

Uthyr laughed incredulously, "He chose this kind of form?  Nothing intimidating about this at all."  
  
"He's still young, you sick freak!" Lance sobbed, "He's not fully grown!"

The dragon hunters ignored him as they strapped Keith's hands together, hauling him up off the ground by his armpits.  His head lolled, and Lance almost vomited.  His stomach clenched as he choked it back.

Keith didn't look unconscious.   He looked dead.  
  
Gregar looked down at his crotch, scoffing.  "Someone grab him clothes.  I don't want to see his weird junk hanging out."  
  
“Wait!  I need to seal him in this form first,” Ylla snapped as she attached a collar around Keith's pale neck, clicking it closed and enchanting it.  The amount of magic she was using was far more than Lance had ever seen anyone use in their lives.

Someone so talented, who could’ve done so much more with themselves, had sunk to this.  To this kind of inhuman cruelty.

Lance hated her violently for it.  
  
Finally, a shirt and a pair of trousers were shoved over the dragon's still form, and Keith was unceremoniously shoved onto Uthyr’s shoulders.  The hunters were slapping each other on the back, like they had just shot a rabbit and celebrating their catch, and not a creature that would’ve tried to eat them whole if he’d known better.  Their joyousness only made Lance cry harder, his tears choking up his throat.

Ylla was the only one who lingered.  She sat with him, probably to keep him chained long enough to let her cronies escape.  Lance didn’t care for her company.

When he did nothing but cry silent tears, curled up in on himself, she remarked, "That dragon was the hardest battle we've fought in a while.  I’m going to have magical exhaustion after this.”

"You're fucking lucky you tricked me," Lance snarled, his voice thick with emotion.  "Or I would've let him roast you alive."  
  
"You lied to us as well," She said, as if that excused anything.  "You said we'd find frost drakes in these mountains but that beast was something else.  What did you call him?"  
  
"It's not his name, so don't bother,” he said bitterly.

“You know, I liked you,” Ylla admitted.  “The plan was originally to leave you up here alone, but I can’t just leave a person to die.”

Lance felt bile rising in his throat.  “But you could kill me if I was in your way?  Was capturing Keith worth killing an innocent person?  What are you even going to do to him?!"

Ylla tutted, messing up her tight ponytail until her dark hair fell down her shoulder.  It looked so much like Keith’s that it just made Lance cry harder, until he was surprised he even had something in him to cry about.

He couldn’t even tell what his emotions were, anymore.  
  
"We're heading to Reyulium first.  If the dragon riders there don't purchase him, we'll take him south to Yrent,” Ylla finally said as she tied her hair back up, “You’d approve.  They make use of every part of a dragon; hide, horns, bones, blood, meat.  They don't pay as highly, so they're always the second place we go.  But that training school in Reyulium is picky about the dragons they accept.  Your friend may be going to a slaughterhouse."  
  
"You'd sell him to a slaughterhouse?!" Lance gasped, remembering Montez’s warnings about dragon scales; remembering that some people really were monsters, and he had been living among them for days without realizing it.  With all the last of his strength, he tried once again to struggle against the chains holding him down-- but without his magic, he couldn’t break metal, no matter how cold.  
  
"They're animals, Lance.  Just like anything else we hunt.  Don't deceive yourself," She replied, leaning back and closing her eyes.  “You shot a rabbit yourself earlier.  And you just tied up it’s corpse to your belt and went on with your lives.  Just like we do.”  
  
"Dragons aren't just animals!" Lance whispered, aghast, "They're not like wyverns, they can speak common, they can spend their lives as human if they wanted—!"

She gave him a look.  Her eyes were so different from Keith’s, so dull and brown and… still filled with something, something that had turned cold and unforgiving long ago.  Something that Lance had never seen in anyone’s eyes, no matter how old the elf.  

A feeling so dark as that would kill an elf.  
  
“He was an animal!  He marked you, you know?!  That's how we found you in Thydrica.  He marked you as his property.  The hound sniffed you out," she sneered, picking up her staff and herself up off of the snow. "Drake musk all over you.  Did you know?"  
  
Lance shook his head slowly.  
  
"He marked you like an _animal_ , because that's what he is," she shook her head, using a thin whip of her magic to slice right through his chains.  Ylla gave him one last look, a spell lingering on her fingertips, "If you want to buy him and own him like he owned you, Reyulium is the first marketplace to check.  Of course, I don't think a common hunter has enough money to truly match the riders, but I wish you luck.  You’ll see it our way soon enough."

And with that, she threw down her spell and disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Lance alone on a cold mountainside, tears freezing on his cheeks.


	7. Part 2: Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to part two of SoaS! There's been a substantial time-skip, so please note that. For a better understanding of the world that SoaS takes place in, please reference this map!:  
> [here](https://78.media.tumblr.com/ffab880fa5b815e3308aec53169c6f92/tumblr_p9iem8uDKk1sdnqjao2_1280.png)

Southern wind blew differently than northern wind; sweeter somehow, mellow and soft.  It was all friendly breezes and buttery sunshine, warm with notes of citrus. Lance thought it was beautiful.

Reyulium.  City of Kings, as the humans called it.  It had a long and illustrious history, although humans tended to change so rapidly Lance had probably been alive for a good portion of that history.  For humans, 500 years was long enough to have legends.

And the most important of Reyulium’s legends was more than just a myth; it was reality.

_ Dragonriders. _

Reyulium was founded by a group of humans who had the controversial tradition of creating human-dragon partnerships; soulbonds, forged by stealing a dragon’s soul and giving it physical form, and entrusting that soul to a human.  Humans had used the power of the drakes to become kings and emperors amongst their own kind, but other races tended to look down upon the tradition with disdain, elves especially. 

The elves had thought the tradition so uncouth that the elven empire, stretching across almost all of Yoraos, banded together and fought a war over it, and the humans had won, their tenacity killing many, and leaving the elven kingdoms scattered, divided across the continents.  Now, instead of a chain in the elven empire, Thydrica was simply a city-state. Other great elven cities were razed and burned to ash, dragonfire taking so much more than just Xiomara’s leg.

It had all happened when he was still too young to understand.  He’d rarely left his mother’s house, and had never ventured beyond Thydrica.  It hadn't mattered to him that the humans had destroyed the elven empire as it stood.  Everything he’d once needed was back at home.

It wasn’t until he met Keith that he’d ever wanted to leave.

Even now, Lance wasn't sure he truly cared about yesteryear’s wars or seeing the world beyond.  He could barely get excited seeing this new climate. From the olive trees that sparsely dotted the landscape to the bright blue of the joyful ocean, Reyulium was in a wash of color that painted the whole landscape in brilliant relief.  At any other time, he would be singing songs about its beauty and enjoying the friendliness of such a place, where everything was warm and alive.

But yet all he cared about was if Uthyr’s hunter clan had made it here. 

If they did, then Keith would likely be in the hands of the dragonrider academy of Cihglithe.  This, besides going even further south to Yrent, was his only clue on Keith's whereabouts. He wasn't about to waste this chance.

Lance had to make his way here entirely on his own, with only the vaguest hopes that he hadn’t wasted too much time that the hunters had already moved on, that maybe the riders had managed to secure Keith from the even crueler fate of a slaughterhouse.

Not that living soulbound against your will was a much better option.  For that practice, Lance wanted to burn down this city just like his elders had attempted to, and he was going to get his dragon to help him do it.

His plan was rather simple.  First things first; sneak into the academy as a student in disguise and find where they kept their dragons.  Second, find Keith among them. Third, break him out.

If he managed to do that, then maybe he could finally sleep easy for the first time in months.

Getting to Reyulium hadn't been easy, and finding Shiro–only for the dragon to try to kill him–had been a waste of time he didn't have.  There was a chance Keith wasn't even here; that Shiro had already swooped in and saved his brother, or that the academy had seen Keith and refused to purchase him from the hunters; and Lance had traveled on foot across the continent just to learn he was too late.

But his gut feeling told him that no self-respecting dragonrider would see a drake as big, powerful, and young as Keith was and decide to pass him up.  If Keith was still in trouble, he would be trapped here by these humans.  _ He had to be. _

He couldn't imagine Keith being already dead.  If he really was too late, he couldn't imagine recovering; it would destroy him for the rest of his short life, an emotion strong enough to snuff him out completely.  

But not immediately, no.  If Keith was dead, Lance would find those hunters in Yrent and he’d  _ kill _ them all, in front of their loved ones in the most gruesome ways possible, until he scared all of their families and future generations so badly that they would never, ever, _ ever  _ treat an intelligent being like Uthyr’s clan of hunters had.  Only once he’d finished would he finally let his grief put him in the ice.

Either way, those thoughts were self-defeating.  Lance was in Reyulium, and there was a large chance that Keith would be here, in the hands of Cihglithe Academy.

Speaking of the academy, Lance could see the red-brick towers of the main building, topped with brightly colored roofs and cheerful flags waving lazily in the breeze, even from here, just inside the city’s gates.  It was a long walk, but he was determined.

Not that it was easy with all the stares he was getting.  Every human, either manning their store or milling about or even the guards patrolling, would react to him, by glaring or gaping or avoiding him.  Was it really so strange that they had to stare, just to see if his skin was _ really _ blue, was he  _ really _ a frost-elf?  Lance had known he wouldn’t fit in, but had these humans really never seen an elf?  It bothered him, more than he wanted to admit, that he was some kind of curiosity that had mothers scolding their children for following him, guards glaring at him nonstop, and shopkeepers keeping an eagle eye on their goods as he passed.

It was the street children, the ones with no parents to hold them back, that flocked to him, like some kind of carnival attraction.  He must’ve had six or seven urchins trailing after him, clinging on his clothes and pushing him.

Finally, when one human boy had started clinging to his cape and refusing to let go even when his friends finally got bored and left, Lance just had to ask, “Haven’t you ever seen an elf?”

“Not a blue one like you, sir!” The child beamed at him, a snaggletooth protruding from his lips, “Is your skin cold?  Do you eat seals? Do you live in igloos? Do you eat humans for lunch?”

Lance liked to pretend he had patience with children, but he really didn’t.  He was the youngest elf in his family, and he didn’t know any other kids in Thydrica who hadn’t grown up with him.  His generation wasn’t old enough to really settle down with children yet, and the older generations were plumb out of kids.  Elves in general rarely had children. Lance’s family was known to be almost scandalously massive. If there were any small children in Thydrica, Lance would be surprised.

He instead sighed, yanking his cape out of the child’s hands, and snapped, “No, no, no, and no.  I’m busy, okay? I need to go to Cihglithe.”

The kid laughed at him, “Really?  An _ elf _ going to a dragonrider school?  Are you stupid, mister?”

Yeah, Lance really hated kids.

“That’s none of your business, and no, I’m not stupid!”

“You sound stupid,” a third, new voice chimed in.  It belonged to a short, uh, person, wearing trousers and a loose button down shirt, their youth and height making Lance unable to discern their gender.  After all, the top of their head only came up to Lance’s chest. Their hair was a bright copper color, their eyes a mischievous green, and they spoke in such a way that made Lance want to punch their smug little face in.  “Arguing with a little kid.”

“It’s not my fault that the little gremlin exists!” Lance swore, almost tripping over the laughing tiny menace.  He just wanted him to go away.

“Kids are a _treasure,”_ They replied in such a sarcastic tone that Lance was sure they shared his feelings for them, shooing away the small monster back into the crowd, and getting into step with Lance, even with their shorter legs.  “Anyway, the little guy is right. You can’t go to the academy. You’re an elf. They don’t admit elves as students.”

Lance blinked.  He’d never thought about not being allowed to do something--even if it was something he’d never wanted to do-- just because he was an elf.  Lance had been born mere decades after this academy was even established, and they wouldn’t let him enter?

Well, he did have vague plans of burning this whole city down, so he really shouldn’t care, but it made him bristle.

“That’s not why I’m headed there anyway,” Lance decided on saying, avoiding the newcomer’s eyes.

“I don’t think it matters.  No elves are admitted on the premises, ever,” They said.  “They decided that means me too, purely from the ears. Not like I haven’t tried.”

Lance looked down with surprise, noting that this person did have pointed ears, like his own, except with a more severe forwards tilt and larger shells.  But their skin was the pale peach of humans, not the greens of wood-elves, or the reds of fire-elves. Not even the white of high-elves.

“I’m a fae,” They said, when he didn’t seem to get it.  “Specifically a pixie.”

Pixies.  Lance had never met one before.  The little fae lived in the trees, and had a rather amicable relationship with wood-elves, and they usually had really intense hairstyles, pointy ears, and little wings to fly with.

This person seemed to be missing two out of those three common trends, but Lance wasn’t going to ask where their wings were or why their hair was so poorly styled, not of a stranger.  It was the same reason he hadn’t asked about their gender, either.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Lance said instead, “My name’s Lance.”

“Call me Pidge,” The pixie said, slapping him on the shoulder.  “You’re kind of dumb, but I think we’ll get along. After all, we both want the same thing.”

Lance cocked his head, an eyebrow raised.

“To get into the academy,” They clarified.

He sighed.  “I don’t want to talk about this so out in the open.  And I wasn’t planning on bringing anyone along with me.”

Pidge’s eyes sparkled, green as meadows, and they said, nice and clear, “You are going to need the help.  You strode in here like you’re aren’t obviously the most elvish person in this whole damn city right now. No one here old enough to know better is fond of elves.  You’re lucky no one has tried anything yet.”

Lance looked around, at how everyone was giving the two of them a wide berth.

“Why are they doing that?” He asked, stunned.

“Because you’re an  _ elf _ ,” Pidge said.  “Elves are wild, crazy folk who live naked in the woods and talk to spirits and fae.  Or in your case, live naked in the snow, I guess.”

He turned back to them, his astonishment clear on his face.  “Elves were the first creatures to walk Yoraos, before humans were even created.  We were the first the gods ever made, we were created to be perfect. And these humans treat us like dirt?”

“Well, that attitude isn’t going to win you any human friends here.  I’m not saying everyone thinks that way. But it’s like, one of the most common human misconceptions.  There aren’t a lot of huge elven cities anymore either though; there’s just Thydrica really, and that’s so far north that no one goes there except humans that are almost as crazy as the elves.”

“I didn’t realize…”

“That the world was so different?  Yeah, humans change like, every five years.  Centuries are a long time to learn new misconceptions about a whole race, especially one that isolates itself from us,” Pidge shook her head.  “Anyway, we shouldn’t talk about this out here, you’re right. I’ll help you with whatever, because I need your help too.”

“Agreed,” Lance said, his head spinning.  “Lead the way.”

* * *

Pidge’s house was a nice little one-room apartment, in one of the scummier parts of town.  They provided Lance with dinner, a table, and a map.

They were being so useful that Lance almost felt like he couldn’t trust them.  The hunters had destroyed his easy trust, and he now eyed the pixie suspiciously, arms crossed and well aware of where his bow was holstered over his shoulder.

“Why are you helping me?” Lance asked, his voice low.  “What do you want from me?”

Pidge frowned, “I need in the academy.  You need in the academy. What else do you need to know?”

“I need to know  _ why,” _ he insisted.

“It’s none of your business,” They snapped.  “I have a map, I am offering to help you. Just get over it, I’m not asking you why you need to break in to the academy.”

“I’ll lay my own reasons all out on the table if you tell me first,” Lance prodded.  He was willing to trust, he wanted to-- this was his best chance, this was someone who knew the ins and outs of the city, and with Pidge’s help, they might actually pull this off.  However, convenient opportunities couldn’t be trusted, they just couldn’t.

They’d hurt Keith before.

He wouldn’t let his overeager, naive brain let him try to get help again, he’d waste more time like he’d wasted weeks on finding Shiro just to get an angry black dragon threatening his life.  Lance was never going to be responsible for hurting Keith again, not if he had the chance otherwise.

Pidge took a deep breath, and rubbed at her tired eyes, “How much do you know about fae?”

“Not much, honestly,” Lance said honestly.

“We can have human parents,” Pidge said.  “And I did. My father was a dragonrider. But recently there’s been something lurking in the shadows, something haunting the mountains and killing livestock.  My father and my brother, he was a rider too, they both went to discover the cause, and neither of them returned. It’s been years, and only recently did my brother’s dragon return, without his rider.  She’s haunted, like her mind is gone, but she knows my brother is still alive.”

Pidge took another moment to glare at the map, their eyes slivers.  “They wouldn’t even let me on the premises to ask the headmistress where they went.  Fuck merely asking; I’m going to sneak in there, I’m going to bond with a dragon, and I’m going to save my family.”

Lance nodded in understanding.  “I get it. I’m looking for someone too; a dragon that I think the academy might’ve picked up recently.  I got him caught by a team of dragon hunters, the least I can do is return to him his freedom.”

“A dragon?  You met a  _ wild  _ dragon?” Pidge asked, sparkling with curiosity.

“As it turns out, yes,” Lance’s shoulders slumped, “I thought we had something together.  We spent a week together, learning each other’s bodies, but… it doesn't matter if he returns what I feel.  I caused this to happen to him. I have to fix this. I have to save him.”

They stared in his eyes, a heartbeat passing as they measured each other.  “Fae can’t lie. You know I’m telling the truth. But I think only an elf would be crazy enough to admit they fucked a dragon, especially in a city that treats dragons as holy beings and elves as naked wildmen.  I believe you.”

“Hey!” He protested.

“We both knew what you meant, elf,” Pidge laughed. 

“You told me your plans but, why do you need my help?”

“... I can't cast spells,” Pidge admitted.  “I can make a potion or two but I can't shape shift.  And I can't cast any magic.”

Lance blinked. “You’re a fae, though?”

“Half fae,” They corrected.  “I don't have a knack for it, okay?  Some humans have no magic and that's my father.  My brother is completely human and has no hope for it either, and my mother was always less talented with magic than her peers.  I was doomed from the start to be bad at it!”

Lance grinned, teasing, “Aw, no magic Pidge.  But what made you think I was a magic user?”

They smirked, “Oh no reason.  You just came off, you know, like a…”

“Like a what?”

“A witch.”

“I’m not a witch!”

“Then why do you dress like that?”

“It's  _ fashionable!” _ Lance squawked.

“On what continent?!” Pidge cackled, their fey laughter sounding a little more menacing than it probably should've.  “Anyway, it doesn't matter. What's important is, are you?”

“I’m not a witch!  I’m a sorcerer, a warlock, whatever you’d like to call it, but I’m not a witch!”

“But you can do magic?”

“Yes!” Lance snapped, crossing his arms, “I’m going to turn you into a frog if you don't stop bugging me.”

He couldn’t make good on his threat, but it sounded bad enough that hopefully Pidge didn’t ask for a demonstration.

“Perfect.  Turning me into a frog is basically all I need,” They said, as Lance swore quietly under his breath.  “Or in this case, a human. So. I’ll help you and you help me?” 

“I can agree to that,” He said, reaching his hand out.

The pixie shook on it, a shared smile between them.

* * *

The two of them divided their time between gathering maps of the area, finding out the academy’s schedule, and studying the art of potion making.

Pidge was a self-proclaimed expert in potions, but had never had the magic spark to make them work.  Lance had never tried to do potion-based magic in his life. And if they were going to convince anyone that they were human as can be, they both had to shapeshift their ears away. 

The way Lance had always learned to shift was a very internal process; he couldn’t force something else to change its inherent shape because it didn’t work that  _ way.   _ He couldn’t do it unless he managed to fully saturate a being with his magic down to their core until their quintessence matched his.  And as a quick study of magic and a few failed attempts showed, doing that to something tended to kill it. Lance had no desire to become a  _ necromancer _ , thank you very much.

But potions could do it.  Potions were digested, and the magic would naturally spread through the veins once introduced to the system.  So ended up with a potion master with no magic and a potion novice with too much magic tried to combine their talents in one small vial.

It hadn’t gone well so far.

Lance sighed, stirring the contents of the cauldron ‘widdershins’, as Pidge put it, and then again clockwise, and then two more times widdershins.  He hated the slow, glacial pace of this kind of magic. Elves used their magic to connect with nature on a personal level, taking their mana from the power of Yoraos itself.  This kind of human magic was designed for less wild intentions, for something well, more  _ witchy _ than Lance wanted to admit.

“Did you add the Mandrake root?” Pidge asked, staring down into the brown sludge.  “Eye of the toad?”

“I followed your damn spellbook!” Lance whined, pushing them away, “I’m focusing!”

“Just asking!” They shoved back, their nose wrinkling, “I don’t want to actually turn into something awful!”

“If it’s not the color by the end, I won’t make you drink it!” Lance grumbled, returning to his stirring.  It was two more times widdershins, then…

Oh no.  When Pidge distracted him, he’d totally lost count of his stirring.

He’d probably stirred twice, might as well change directions, right?   It was starting to bubble angrily.

Pidge gave him a look.  “You fucked it up again, didn’t you?”

Lance swallowed miserably, “Don’t even mention it and just go buy me some more mandrake root, okay?”

* * *

Late in the night, probably just before midnight, where the two of them were working in the candlelight to chop up the dried ingredients needed for the potion, Pidge spoke up in barely more than a whisper.  “You should tell me about the dragon.”

Lance chopped off the stem of a dried chile pepper a little too harshly, his voice stern as he replied, “It’s not really any of your business.”

“I’ll tell you more about my family in return, if you want,” Pidge bargained, “I just want to know.  You said you got him captured and sold to the school somehow?”

“I think that’s where he might be, but if he’s anywhere else, I’ve abandoned him to die already,” Lance shook his head, steadying his shaking hands.  “I’m blindly hoping the academy isn’t full of fucking idiots who decided a drake like him was better off slaughtered for his skin and bones.”

“The academy isn’t full of idiots,” Pidge snapped, their temper the shortest Lance had ever known and especially when it came to her family.  “The headmistress is the most powerful witch this city has ever seen, and my dad was head of the faculty. They aren’t  _ stupid _ .  Your drake is there.”

“You believe that more than me,” Lance said, his voice small and bitter.  “If Keith isn’t there, he was sold to Yrent, where the orc chieftains butcher dragons for spare change.”

“The headmistress is the one who decides on every drake that Cihglithe acquires,” They replied, “If you saw her, you’d understand why I don’t doubt that.  She’s wiser than anyone else. She looks into each dragons’ soul, and immediately knows them, inside out. She’ll look at yours and see something so  _ loved  _ you crossed continents to find him.”

“Is it love?” Lance whispered, “Or guilt?  I don’t know anymore. It’s been months since I’ve seen him and I barely remember what he looks like.  I barely remember his eyes, and I spent so much time getting lost in them that I thought I’d never find my way out.  How can I say that I love him if I can’t even picture him?”

“Sometimes I can’t even remember what my dad looks like,” Pidge said, their voice small and their big, too bright eyes filled with tears.  “Or how Matt looks. They’ve been missing for so long. They’re probably _ dead, _ honestly, I-I don’t know why Olia thinks Matt is alive.  Olia’s not even all there, she’s wrong inside, she doesn’t know her bond from her own thoughts.”

“Pidge…” Lance said, his shoulders slumping as he reached out towards them, his hand hovering over their small shoulder.

“ _ But! _  But it doesn’t mean I don’t l-love them!  Or that I don’t feel  _ guilty, _ that I’ve taken years to even get far enough to be making this stupid, stupid potion!” They tossed their knife down onto the table, slamming their hands down on the wooden surface.  The candlelight jumped with the force of their emotions.

He swallowed. “What were they like?  Your father and brother?”

Pidge wiped at their eyes, sniffling into her thin-boned wrist.  Lance reached out, placing his hand on their shoulder.

“I-If it's too hard, you don't have to–”

“No, it's okay, I want to,” Pidge said, leaning on Lance’s shoulder.  “My dad was… strong. But mostly he was smart, really smart. His dragon’s common name was Lubos.  They both used to play with me, and ruffle my hair and I used to ride in my dad’s lap as he flew, it was… I looked up to him so much.  He wasn't always there, but he tried to be, for me and my brother. Especially my brother, I think, because I was my mom’s little girl but my brother needed to be someone’s favorite too.”

“Little girl?” Lance asked.

“What, you didn't notice that I’m a girl?” Pidge grinned.  “I wear dresses!”

“You don't, uh, I thought… I wasn't sure!  Guys can wear dresses!” Lance whined.

“I’m a girl, Lance,” Pidge laughed, her nose tucked into his shoulder, “I’m glad you didn’t assume anything, you kind fool, but I’m definitely a girl.  Next time just  _ ask _ .”

Lance pouted.  “I don’t like admitting when I don’t know stuff.”

“It makes you look stupider when you don’t ask questions,” Pidge pointed out.  “Like my brother. Always have to go the roundabout way so I’d think you were cool.”

“Oh shut up.  Your brother, what was he…?”

“He was a huge nerd, but he liked to make everything a joke.  You really do remind me a little of him, if he was more grumpy and elfy,” Pidge teased.  “His dragon’s common name is Olia. She used to be his partner in crime, his fellow troublemaker.  They were really lighthearted, while my dad took things more seriously. So it made sense that they did all their missions together if they could help it.”

Lance hummed, showing he was still listening.  Something about the way Pidge held her shoulders the longer she talked convinced him that this really was helping her.  Remembering her family in a positive light like this, sharing the pain she’d suffered, it was healing wounds in her heart.  He wished he could be as capricious with his own feelings as humans could be. He wished that talking about it had helped him, even once.

“My brother was more ready to get his hands dirty, even though he had even less arm strength than me.  My father would play diplomat and my brother would play the guard, and they did so much for Reyulium and the surrounding towns.  They solved disputes, broke up arguments between the humans and the fae, and fought off wild monsters who killed helpless farmers and villagers.”

“You talk like they were unstoppable,” Lance said.

“I thought they were,” Pidge agreed, “But they were just humans.  They didn’t even have the longevity I do, as half-fae. But Olia insists that they’re still alive out there somewhere, and I have to believe her.  I have to become a dragonrider like they were, and find out what happened to them. If I find them alive… no, I  _ will. _  I  _ will  _ find them alive.  And you’ll find your drake alive too.”

“Just another reason to finish these potions,” Lance joked, reaching out to lay his hand on Pidge’s shoulder.  “I’ll help you get into the academy. We’re going to do this.”

“Good,” Pidge agreed.  “Because I don’t intend to fail.”

* * *

Another week of poorly made attempts, on the very last night they had before their best window of opportunity passed them by, Lance finally felt like the glowing, bubbling green potion was probably made just right and not likely to turn Pidge into anything truly awful.

Pidge shook the potion with a dubious look on her face.  “Are you sure? You aren't exactly a potion master...”

“Oh like you’ve made any potions that aren't overhyped tea!” Lance snapped.  “Someone has to try it and it's going to be you!”

“But if it goes wrong and  _ you _ drink it, then you can just fix it!  You can shapeshift without a potion!”

“True but it’s not made to turn an  _ elf _ human, it's made to turn a  _ fae _ human.  I'm not a fae!  Even if it does work on me, we don't know how it would've affected you!” Lance bluffed.  He knew exactly what went into that potion and no, absolutely not, it was not going into his mouth.

“Oh bull shit!” Pidge popped the cork, sniffing at its, well, unfortunate odor.  “What if it turns me into a frog?! What if I turn green?”

“It might be an improvement on your pasty skin,” Lance sniffed.  “I’m not drinking it. I’d rather die. You drink it.”

“I don't want to,” She pouted.

“But tonight is the best night for us to sneak into Cihglithe, you said so yourself.  We don't have time to brew another potion!” Lance snapped, “Just, just  _ shut up  _ and trust me!  We’ve been working on this together for a whole week!  I’m tired of wasting time when I could just walk up there anytime I wanted and sneak right in!”

Pidge  _ knew _ how he felt about Keith.  Pidge knew that she was more of a burden right now to him than a help.  Lance knew that the both of them were getting frustrated with this process, so slow and long.  His words said more than either of them could explain.

It was the reminder of why they needed this so badly that convinced the fae.

Pidge tentatively swirled the bottle, her big green eyes hesitant, “Down the hatch it is, I guess…”

She made a big show out of drinking it, shuddering with every swallow.  The stench of it didn't really disguise the fact it would taste like the worst thing either of them could imagine.

At first, it didn't look like it was doing anything.  But slowly Pidge’s ears shrank and shrank and shrank until they were small and round, flat against her scalp.  Her bright green eyes had mellowed into a warm hazel, and her hair started to curl, ringlets and kinky tresses framing her new ears.  Freckles bloomed on her face, so many that the white skin underneath was barely visible.

Not only had Lance managed to make a potion for Pidge to be human, he’d managed to disguise her identity altogether.

“It worked!” Lance beamed, “It worked!  Pidge, you don't even look like you, it's perfect!”

She pulled at her hair, marveling at its new texture.  “You actually did a good job and we’ll call the accidental disguising a happy accident.  But don't think this would've worked without my expertise in potions!”

“I never insinuated such a thing,” Lance hummed, “But no potion could've don't that without the important touch of magic.  And  _ you. _ _ Don't. _ _ Have any.” _

“You’re so full of shit, Lance!” Pidge punched him in the shoulder, fuming.

He laughed, before he focused, his magic frustratingly slow as his skin slowly sank into a dark gold, his ears shrinking and folding, his whole body shrinking an inch or two.  Soon, he looked as human as Pidge did, 

“True, but your disguise being complete means we don't have any reason to be wasting moonlight.  You have some historical records to dig through and papers to forge, and I have a dragon to find,” Lance said, putting his serious face back on.  “Are you ready?”

“Never been more ready in my life,” Pidge’s hazel eyes held all the determination her green ones had, even if they weren't as bright.

Pidge had come up with the plan almost a year ago, and Lance had been only another puzzle piece of hers.

Cihglithe academy had a strong barrier that only let those admitted through the front gates inside.  Lance had been tempted to just suggest breaking the barrier but dragon magic–that is, magic cast by a dragon and a rider together–was far stronger than any one single person could defeat.  Even if Pidge had magic, there was no guarantee they’d have any success working together.

So being admitted at the front gates was their only hope.

Since Pidge’s brother and father had been dragon riders, she knew the system.  She had dreamed about being a dragon rider herself but her large shelled ears and too bright eyes gave away the fact she wasn’t all human.  And Pidge’s vested interest came in handy when faced with the gates; she would know exactly what to say to make it seem like they were just two drunk students, stumbling home after a night of too much drinking post-final examinations.

High off the success of their potion, the two of them easily snuck onto the main roads and climbed up the many cliffs that let Cihglithe Academy tower above the rest of Reyulium, even the castle itself.

The city was basically a horseshoe shape, and they ended up walking most of it, Pidge hiking her dress up and shouldering through like an angry orc rather than a petite pixie.  Lance just followed in her wake, his eyes distracted by how different his hands looked every other second.

It wasn't bad, he actually liked the burnished gold hue.  It wasn't the pale pink or the peach undertones that he saw in most human’s skin.  He knew even after only his scant week and a half in Reyulium that humans discriminated against those with dark skin, but to Lance, it made him feel like he was a work of art, something precious. 

In Thydrica, driftwood, especially this color, went for hundreds and was more priceless than any metal.  And the metals this color went for more money than any other. Lance felt like living treasure, and it was distracting.

Still, someone staring at their hands in wonder didn't make for someone convincingly drunk.  Convincingly cursed maybe, but he needed to get with the stumbling and babbling program.

As they approached the gates, Lance wobbled and half collapsed on top of Pidge, theatrically sobbing into her hair.

“I can't lie, asshole, so you better sell this good,” Pidge grumbled.

“'S no prablum,” Lance slurred, “I’ll ace s'it!  Like the, the, what- _ cha-ma-call _ -it?  Exss… exham!”

“Be merciful, spirits,” Pidge prayed.

Once they entered the arch of the gate, the beginning of the barrier, did they see an equally tired gate guard, sitting on back of a tiny grey dragon, only the size of a small hut.  Whether the dragon had shrunk down or really was that tiny, Lance could only guess.

“ _ OH! _ S’our friend!” Lance rambled, pushing away Pidge and wobbling towards the gate keeper with a dopey grin on his face, “S’ Greog, right?”

“It’s actually Rickar,” The gatekeeper laughed, accepting it as Lance stumbling into giving his dragon a hug with both hands awkwardly stretching to make it fit.  “You two look a right mess. Were finals really so bad?”

Pidge nodded, “Yes, and I was warned about them, too.”

Since she couldn't lie, Lance interrupted, “The worst, goods… gudsir, the  _ wurst _ !  She almost flunked right out!”

Rickar raised his eyebrow, “If you almost flunked, how bad did our drunkard do?”

“He did the same as I did,” Pidge said, which was her careful way of saying that neither of them took the test at all.

“She’s too res… rezpons _ bull _ for ale,” Lance said as he tried to hug Pidge again, loping on back to her and pulling at her cheeks.

“Someone had to escort him to the academy.  He had no idea how to get here,” Pidge stuttered, nervous as she tried to slip in words that just weren't coming.

Lance could also hear how her inability to lie was likely causing her more problems than she’d wanted to originally admit.  He was about to open his mouth to save her from her awkward phrasing, but the gatekeeper beat him to it.

“Well, I’ll let you throw him right on back into the dorms before he pukes,” Rickar said, opening the gate and the barrier all at once.

It almost seemed too easy, but maybe drunk students weren’t the weirdest thing to happen to a gatekeeper this late at night.  Lance chalked it up to his excellent acting, if he did say so himself, and shoved Pidge when her feet trembled at the thought of finally, after years, being able to step inside a place that had always belonged to her brother and father and never, ever her merely for a technicality of her birth.

They stumbled on through, keeping up appearances as best they could, as Lance hooted and hollered and Pidge just grumbled at him when he started putting too much weight on her tiny frame.

Once the gate closed behind them, and the sounds of the city disappeared beyond the veil protecting the academy, the both of them missed Rickar’s tiny smile as he said, “Good luck, Pidge.  It's what Matt would've wanted.”

The grey dragon grumbled in agreement, “Didn't even try to make the elf  _ smell _ drunk.  Silly gooses.”

 

* * *

Once inside, they split up.  Pidge was sneaking in the headmistress’s office, hoping to forge herself some paperwork and be admitted as a student for the upcoming year, which started in two weeks.  If she wanted to be a student, tonight was the night to create her admission paperwork.

Lance didn't want to be a rider.  He was hoping to cover Pidge’s tracks by causing some commotion sneaking into where the academy kept the weyrn– the stables Pidge had called them, like dragons were wyverns or horses, instead of fully intelligent beings–and ultimately, finding and freeing Keith from his chains.

This was probably a goodbye for them, and the pixie had grown on Lance much like an ingrown toenail.  It would be painful removing her from his life, so swiftly like this, but ultimately it had to be done.  Lance needed to save Keith before the academy tried to pry his soul out of him and enslaved him permanently.

No matter what Pidge said about the practice, it was just  _ barbaric _ .

But sneaking around a place like this was hard, especially as it tugged on his elvish sensibilities.  The humans who had once lived here, five hundred years ago, had injured and killed his kin, dissolved the elven empire, and continued their practices like they had done nothing wrong, and yet the building that continued to house those atrocities told a different story.  The sharp square patterns of Thydrican Architecture were absent from academy’s ancient walls, but the twisting vines and the ivy leaves that decorated the walls and ceiling reminded Lance heavily of the ancient elvish design he had studied. The whole building looked as if it could've been made by the hands of the empire, and the notches and thin windows mirrored Lance’s understanding of fortified walls for archers.

Cihglithe Academy called to him, told him stories of elves and man and how dragons had been the thing to tear them apart.  For this school had been built by elves, but had been abused by man over the centuries it had stood.

Lance scowled and tried to focus once again.  No use in staring at old, abandoned stories. Not when he had someone he had promised to save.

He let his legs carry him, his eyes dull in the dark as he tried to figure out which one of these huge buildings could be the stable.

Three of the towering pale-gold brick structures emitted cheery hickory smoke from their chimneys, but one looked much too small to be much more than a facade, not very tall at all in comparison to the towering castle-esque forts around it.  It was only the idea that perhaps there was more hidden than Lance could see that had him racing across a dark grass lawn towards that small building, ignoring the other more impressive structures.

Lance moved like wind over the grass, his footsteps as light as he could manage.  His heart pounded, fear of being caught hastening his breath. When the small facade stood before him, he shoved both of the doors open with both his bare hands and slipped inside, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness inside.   
  
A set of stairs, climbing endlessly downwards into darkness, lay before him.  He heard the intake of many lungs, the exhale of just as many, a whole host of sleeping beings in the dark.  This had to be the stables.   
  
Lance took the stairs two at a time in his eagerness.  Something in his heart echoed back, telling him that this was the right place.   _ This _ was where he would find Keith.   
  
A snuffle, a snore, the noises of a great many dragons moving about in their sleep, it would sound more horrifying if Lance wasn't positive that he would come to no harm.  For all that this was the belly of the beast, these 'stables' didn't hold willing prisoners.   
  
"...Keith?" Lance whispered, finally able to see now that he had reached the bottom of that staircase.   
  
His tiny whisper echoed, belying the great expanse of the cavern.  He could see rows upon rows of dragons, holes burrowed into a great cave, lining the ceiling to the floor with pockets of sleeping dragons of all sizes.  The weyr was fuller than he'd ever imagined. There must be hundreds of dragons here.   
  
Still, it wasn't hard for Lance's ever-sharp eyes to find Keith, curled up with many smaller dragons huddling him for warmth, the glowing fire of his chest and his massive size, as the biggest dragon there, making his presence like a beacon.  Lance couldn't look away, his heart melting with relief.

He looked no worse for wear, even the massive scar on his shoulder having healed, the pink of the new skin underneath starting to dot with purple scales, and another on the curve of his cheek.  He was healing, the rhythmic purring of his skin soothing the tenseness in his shoulders and wings even as Lance watched. And beautiful, oh, he was so  _ beautiful _ .

This worry and dread and failure he felt, had carried with him for so long, started to melt in the warmth and joy of just being able to see him, one more time.   
  
He took a step forward, intending to wake him, but a hand wrapped around and clamped over his mouth just as he was about to call out.  The dark fingers gagged him, silencing his cry of alarm, as a woman trapped him from behind.   
  
She yanked him backwards, magic aiding her, and Lance was almost blinded by how his rage surged inside him.   
  
_ Ylla _ , his mind screamed, despite the unlikeliness of it, and he jabbed his elbow back, breaking free and trying to call up his own magic.  His panic had the hair heavy with frost, his breath visible in the suddenly cold night air as he struggled.   
  
"Lance,  _ stop," _ Pidge said quietly, desperately, "It's too late.  They caught us."   
  
Lance whipped around, rage carried in his blood as he accused, "You told them where I was?!"   
  
"No, she didn't," said the woman who had her magic restraining Lance's arms. "I discovered you both myself.  Stop making a scene, or I'll gag you again. I'm afraid you both are coming with me, to my office."   
  
Lance gritted his teeth and let himself be yanked along back to where he came.  He didn't appreciate the roughness of the woman's iron strong grip, but he couldn't fault her–if she let up her magic or her grip, Lance would've wriggled out of it and made a knife out of ice, going for her throat.

The two Intruders were dragged across the lawn, past rows of buildings, towards the main structure of the academy, the towering fort that held so much history and was somehow elvish in design.  The woman brought them to a secret door, one that glowed upon her touch and unlocked with a whispered command, and then up so many stairs that Lance felt strain in his knees.

Finally, the three of them entered in a large set of double doors, and entered a grand room, with one big desk at the center and bay windows behind, covered with a set of curtains.   
  
The woman, likely the headmistress judging by where they had been brought, tossed both he and Pidge onto a plush couch, a set of bespelled handcuffs chaining them down so they were sitting quite proper.  With her prisoners still trapped, her hands were now free to fix her wayward kinky tresses, which were a silver to contrast her dark as night skin.

“Trespassing, forging documents, breaking into our sacred spaces–honestly, Katelyn Holt, it's a miracle I didn't just toss you both back out the front gates!” The woman focused them with a careworn, tired gaze, too old for her young face.

_ Katelyn Holt…  _ Lance realized that Pidge had given a nickname.  Very typical of fae, he’d heard, to keep their real names a secret.  To the fae, names held power.

“But Mrs. d’Altea–!” Pidge squeaked, looking rather ashamed of herself with all her freckles and curls.

“No!  I pity you for your family's loss, but I can’t simply just change the rules for you.  There are centuries of tradition that I would cast aside if I took you as a student. Do you know how much paperwork that would take?”

Lance could hear Pidge’s heart shattering, her hopes dashed against the cruel shore of reality, only to find herself naught but froth, cold and formless.  If he could think of something to defend her with, he’d do it, but his mind was blank.

The headmistress massaged her silvery brow, a sigh on her lips, “And you also bring me a thief.  Someone meaning to steal a dragon. Katie, do you know what could happen to these dragons outside of this academy?  They are hunted, captured for their hide, teeth, and horns, slain like cattle. Cihglithe is the only place where dragons are truly safe.”

Lance couldn't help it, dropping his glamor so that the headmistress could see his blue skin, his pointed ears, the elvishness of his cheekbones.  “ _ Safe?!  _  You steal their souls from them before making them fight your battles!  Slavery isn't safety, and a golden cage is still a cage!”

She took a step back, a gasp escaping her lips, her hand clenching, “How very elvish of you, Mr…?”

“Lance McClain,” he spat, glaring at her blue eyes, narrowing his own. “Of Thydrica.”

“McClain.  An  _ elf _ ...  Congratulations, Mr. McClain, you are the first elf to have set foot inside Cihglithe since the age of war between elves and men,” she said, a thin brow raising.  “Do you like the facilities?”

“As much as you like me being inside them,” Lance sneered.

“Well, I hope to change your mind, because I’ll be showing you to the dungeons shortly.  Right after I escort Katelyn off the premises, again, for the third and  _ final _ time.”

Lance closed his mouth, well aware that being locked up without his magic wouldn't end well for anyone. He didn't want to be helpless again, only able to watch as Keith was trapped in a bond that he couldn't break.

The headmistress seemed to be waiting for him to snap back like he had before, but he kept silent.

“Very well.  Only students and faculty are allowed on the premises freely,” She said sharply, “and as of right now, both of you are trespassing.  I’ll turn Mr. McClain over to the city guard tomorrow morning.”

_ “Wait!”  _ Pidge cried out.  “Mrs. d’Altea, the way you said it!  You intend to admit me as a student!”

The headmistress startled, her blue eyes wide even as her lips turned up the tiniest amount.  “What gave it away?”

“You said, _ I can't simply just _ , implying that you  _ could _ do it, but it would be difficult!  And then you mentioned the paperwork, which how would you know unless you already had tried?  Plus, you kept hinting at us trespassing since we weren’t students  _ as of right now _ , that you would remove me for the  _ final _ time.  Implying if I came back, you wouldn’t escort me off again!  You want me as a student!” Pidge beamed, her motormouth continuing, “I’m a pixie, if anyone knows how to  wrangle truths into things that sound like lies, it's me!”

The headmistress smiled, “Your father was always so proud of how bright you are, Katie.”

“Thank you–?” The pixie squeaked, the chains holding down her hands releasing with a click. 

“I wasn't lying about the difficulty,” She said, waving off the gesture.  “Admitting non-human students is an almost impossible procedure. The admissions committee doesn't want to change such a long-standing tradition just for one pixie.”

“So there is more!  I thought so–you were acting so cold to Lance but I saw the look in your eyes when you realized he was an elf!” Pidge realized aloud, “They won't change it for just one student, but what about  _ two?” _

The headmistress sighed, a tired smile on her face, “You are correct, my dear.  I want to change the ways of Cihglithe. I don't want to turn aside promising students because their ears happen to be pointed or their skin isn't peach or brown.  I want everyone to know and love dragons, to think of them as friends and protectors.”

Lance would admire that sort of spirit if she didn't have a cave full of dragons without their souls beneath their feet.  If she wasn't someone who advocated for slavery at the same time she advocated for justice.

She continued, her voice high and clear, seeing something beyond her cozy office and the couch she had him trapped to.  “I want to destroy the fear of us and to encourage those who just sit by as dragons are hunted and killed to stand up for what’s right.  This world cannot remain as prejudiced as it is. Darkness is coming. Old foes begin to awake anew. Yoraos must change if it intends to fight.”

“The darkness that captured my father and brother in the mountains,” Pidge said, realization glowing in her eyes.

“ _ Exactly.  _  I fear that darkness.  That’s why I want both of you as students here.  We haven't had an elf on this property for so long, because of their beliefs.  They've never understood what it means to be a dragon rider. I want especially to bridge that misunderstanding.  I want an elf to speak up for us against the outcry of his people. Finally I want to lay the ages old hatred between us to rest, and unite our people against the evil brewing on this continent.”

Lance glared at her, eyes narrowed, “What makes you think I’ll do it?”

The headmistress smirked.  “Well you care for Katie, do you not?  The only way I could admit her is if you also attend.”

Lance cursed, looking over at Pidge’s distraught eyes.

“You have to!” Pidge begged, leaning towards him, “Please, you know why this is so important to me!”

He clenched his eyes closed, trying to think against the pressure.  If he said yes, he would have so many chances to try again, to speak to Keith and free him.  But he’d also have to spend months learning the way of these soul stealers, and he didn't want to become just another instrument of Keith’s entrapment.

He didn't want to see how betrayed Keith would be, knowing Lance had become one of the very people who were keeping him caged.

But if it wasn't for Pidge, Lance wouldn't even have made it inside.  He wouldn't even know Keith was alive. Eventually that fear would eat him alive as much as any grief.  He owed her a debt for that. And the way the headmistress spoke, it sounded like this way more than a passing fancy.  If there was something evil in this world, elves had always been the first ones to fight it.

This might be bigger than just he and Keith.

He opened his eyes, inhaling, “I’ll do it.”

“Great!” The headmistress clapped her hands, letting the handcuffs fall away.  “Mr. McClain, Ms. Holt, please, call me Romelle. I leave that Mrs. d’Altea thing for people I want to scare, and now you are two of my treasured students.”

She opened the window curtains, allowing them both to look out over the whole school and all of its buildings.  The moon was full and bright, illuminating every inch of the grounds. It was no wonder she had seen him sneaking around, with a view like that.

In the light of the stars, Lance saw the elvish influence brighter than ever.  This was a building created in the olden days, by elvish hands. History had kept the builders outside the walls of this academy for centuries.

Now an elf would walk through the halls once again.

Romelle’s eyes twinkled knowingly, her voice deep with her power, “...And welcome to Cihglithe Academy for Dragonriders!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone liked it! I know it's clearly leading up to some pretty different stuff than the summary implied, but I promise it's always been heading this direction. Next chapter, we have: Lance goes back to school despite being an adult and he's pissed about it, Pidge is a slytherin and you can't change my mind, isn't this klance fic, and more side characters and plot that you weren't expecting to show up in a pwp heat fic?


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